


Half Life VR but the Roles are Swapped

by bimothra



Category: Half-Life VR but the AI is Self-Aware - Fandom
Genre: (he’s not dead he’s just the gman), Roleswap AU, also i miss tommy, gordon is aggressively bad at his job
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:00:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 46,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24892792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bimothra/pseuds/bimothra
Summary: When a tired, snarky HEV suit wearer gets harassed by a guard because he “looks suspicious”, things are a little different than the Black Mesa people know and love.
Comments: 214
Kudos: 523
Collections: Key Enjoyed





	1. Act 1: Part 1

RUNNING PROGRAM: HLVR 2020

“yo.”

There was never a more fitting word to come out of Benrey’s mouth while he was walking down the hallways of his miserable job.

Benrey was a physicist at Black Mesa, an MIT graduate, and the one who was going to test the Xen crystal.

(...Although, if the player was being honest, they’ve joked their character has a dark past as a failed streamer. Makes the blank slate a bit more bearable, right?)

He wasn’t really “friends” with anyone on the job, per se, but the guards knew who he was on sheer principle of him being the one to do the big test today. 

He moved further down the hallway, passing the guards that stood there. They looked just as tired as he was, and pretty much just as out of it. Even the one he didn’t recognize was standing attentively, arms folded behind his back. 

He continued down the hallway. His HEV suit echoed across the hallway, two pairs of footsteps hitting the metal-

...No, that wasn’t an echo. Was it?

He stopped, only to feel the force of a vest bump into him. Before Benrey could turn around, something whipped past his side and appeared in front of him. 

A tall- (was he tall or was Benrey’s model ridiculously short??) man in a security uniform stared him down, the shadow his helmet was casting making him appear all the more threatening. A brown ponytail stuck out behind him, curling upwards ever so slightly so that it peeked mischievously into Benrey’s vision. 

“Sir. Do you have clearance to be here?” 

“...whuh?”

The guard inhaled sharply, trying to perfect his already-perfect posture.

“I have to keep this place SECURE. And you look suspicious. So prove to me you’re supposed to be here!” 

“...dude. are you serious.” Benrey gestured wildly to his HEV suit, grunting in annoyance.

The guard remained stone-faced. “Stop waving your hands at me. It just makes you more suspicious.”

Benrey snorted. “look. dude. you wanna see my passport or something or you just gonna let me by?” 

He charged forward, expecting the guard to let him pass, only to bump into a hard security vest. The guard was still there... and still staring at him sternly. 

“I don’t want your passport! You’re being suspicious,” he pressed. The guard grabbed Benrey’s face, wrenching it towards the other guard standing in the hallway. 

“Look at that. You’ve convinced him. This poor, naïve IDIOT.”

“...um, noooo, i think he just knows me because i work here. we’re bros. work bros. because i work here. at black mesa. are you starting to get it?” 

The guard brought his face closer to Benrey’s, blocking all his other vision with an intense determination. 

“The others may be fooled by your TRICKS, but I. Know. A. Security. Breach. WHEN. I. SEE ONE.” 

“...”

“...”

Benrey ducked under the guard and went on his way. 

“Hey! HEY! I’m not going to let you get away that easy! I KNOW what Black Mesa employees look like! And they do NOT wear ugly orange suits!” The guard shouted, running after him. 

“dude. did you just call my hev suit ugly? uncool. unnnnn-cool. i think you’re mean,” Benrey said with a smirk. 

“It might as well be ugly. It’s the suit of SUSPICIOUS PERSONNEL.”

“what’s with you, man?” Benrey continued. “everyone knows the hev suit. it’s like you don’t even work here. jeeeeez.” 

The guard froze where he was, nervously knocking on his helmet with his knuckles repeatedly. “I work here, I DO work here, I’m a Black Mesa Security Guard. I’m great at my job.”

“uh-huh. sure, man.” 

The guard, getting over his little nervous self-assurance, continued to match Benrey’s pace... and he didn’t seem to know what personal space meant. 

Great. 

Benrey tried to lose him by making a detour into the break room, but that only seemed to heighten his confusion, as there was only one scientist in there. 

He was staring intently at the billboards, running his hand over them almost as if he was looking for something. He stopped suddenly, turning his head slowly and meeting Benrey’s eyes with a sly smile. 

“Ahh... Misster Ben-rey, I... presume?” 

“uh. yeah. that’s me. just, uh... grabbing some lasagna beforeee... the big test. you know how it is,” Benrey said quietly, feeling like the man’s bright blue eyes were boring straight into him. Between that and the guard finally catching up to him with an accusatory stare, he felt like he was sandwiched between two walls.

“You need not worry about me, or... either of us,” the scientist continued. “I am here to... help you on your way.” 

“on my way to the test room? yeah- uh- no. i already got an escort. i’m good.”

“Not... NOW, of course, but later, when you need it... I will be there.”

“yeah. cool. great. so, uh, can i get a name, then? since you apparently know mine,” Benrey asked, leaning forward slightly and feeling the guard’s vest ram into his back. 

“Myyy.. name.” He exhaled, adjusting his tie. “Right.”  
“You may call me... Dr. G. The full name is... quite, unnecessary for you to know, Mr. Ben-rey.” 

“cool.” 

“hey, uh, guard guy. is he suspicious? i think no name is pretty sus. maybe your should follow HIM instead n’ let me do my job.” 

“Nope. He has the right to withhold his name! Isn’t that right, sir?” The guard said, poking out from behind Benrey’s shoulder and giving him a friendly nod. 

“That isss... entirely correct,” Dr. G added, and Benrey groaned.

“He has his lab coat on. He’s a scientist. He WORKS here. I think that’s suspicious. That you think he’s suspicious. You’re trying to divide us guards and scientists. Huh? Is that it? I see your plan. You won’t get away with it. Not when I’m here...”

“BENREY,” he hissed, with a newfound confidence now that he had found the man’s name. 

“ughhhh. fine, i’ll leave him alone. happy?” Benrey muttered. 

“That’s for the best, Mr. Ben-rey... they do need you in the tessst chamber... after all,” Dr. G said with a knowing smile. 

Far too knowing, Benrey thought. 

Still, neither the wild guard or the scientist were budging, so it looked like Benrey’s time in the break room was up. 

Once again trying to lose the guard, Benrey skirted into the locker room, nearly bumping into yet another, taller individual.

He adjusted his glasses, huffing bluntly. “Sheesh. Didn’t anyone tell you not to bump into people, you idiot?” 

“no, it’s okay. that’s how we say ‘yo’ in bro code.” 

“Ah, of course! Bro code. I’ll have to write that one down,” he said, closing his locker. The nametag said “Bubby”, and for a second, Benrey thought he had become dyslexic- nobody’s name could REALLY be BUBBY, could it? 

“Hello, Benrey! I see you’re admiring my nametag,” Bubby said with a smirk. “Pretty nice, right? I had a flame decal custom-printed for it, but it’s still backed up in the boxes department.”

“uhh. yeah. s’great. bubby,” Benrey muttered, the name feeling weirder coming out of his mouth.

“Better get a move on now, Benrey! Today’s the big day!” Bubby grinned, gesturing towards the other side of the locker room.

“yuuup. i’m the big boss in town,” Benrey replied, walking over to the other side. He seemed to have finally lost the guard-

Nope.

Spoke too soon.

The guard had been waiting on the other side the entire time. 

“I think you don’t know where you’re going,” the guard said matter-of-factly, stopping in front of the elevator doors.

“no i do. i think you’re lost. cos you keep following me around. all the time. why do you do that, dude?” Benrey countered.

“I’m following you because I need to keep this place secure. And you? Are not secure. Is that why you’re shaking? You know you can’t beat me?” He poked Benrey in the chest.

“nah, dude. low iron.” (...But in reality, the VR headset wasn’t the highest quality...)

“anyways, scooch. gotta press some buttons. gamer style.”

Benrey stepped to his left.

The guard stepped to his right.

...Benrey stepped to his right.

The guard stepped to his left.

“I have to follow you, sir.”

“yeah. i got that part, bro. lesson number one clear.”

They both stood there for a bit, before Benrey sneak-attacked the button. At last, the elevator came down, and the two of them headed inside- but the guard made that part quite difficult with his insistence of staying as close to Benrey as humanly possible. 

“People are afraid. I can smell it,” the guard said bluntly.

“dude. you can smel that? hey. smell my fight right now,” Benrey said mischievously, propping his suit leg up onto the guard’s shoulder, who shoved it away in disgust.

“AS I WAS SAYING. They’re afraid of YOU. Security breach. That’s why Dr. G was there. He likes suspicious activity. But the rest of us don’t like you. Because you’re not supposed to be here.” 

“no i think uh- i think i’m supposed to be here. hey, look, shortcut.” Benrey smirked, taking a running leap and jumping down the elevator shaft.

“WHAT ARE YOU- GAH!” The guard looked down, and the elevator came down at last.

“You really are in a rush to break the rules, aren’t you?”

“HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAA.”

Benrey didn’t know why he laughed like that.

Bad.

“so,” Benrey said, starting down the hallway. 

“So,” The guard repeated, walking closer- much to Benrey’s annoyance.

“you got my name, but i don’t got yours.”

“Classified,” the guard interrupted. 

“yeah, that’s cool n’ all, but if i don’t have a name you’re getting a name by me. i’ll call you, um... friend of josh-“ 

“FINE!” The guard yelled, balling his fists together. “It’s...” He glanced up towards their destination, his voice wavering to a whisper, almost like he was unsure. “Door...man.” 

“huh?” Benrey leaned closer and cursed his tendency to space out. 

“GOR...don. Free...man.”  
“My name is Security Chief Gordon Freeman,” he repeated, sounding more sure of his name every time he said it. 

“neat. boredom freeman. nice,” Benrey said with a snicker as he sped ahead.

“Not boredom! Gordon! GOR... DON,” he enunciated, gesturing with each syllable. 

“oh woah, look, freeman. these guys are letting me in... do you think maybe. it’s cos you’re mean and you’re not doing your job good?” Benrey said, walking in and out of the sliding doors repeatedly. 

Gordon scoffed, standing right in between the doors. “THEY let you in because they’re bad at their jobs.”

“oh why. are they thinking ‘bout froot loops all day?”

“...Froot Loops?”

“froot loops.” 

The doors slid open, and immediately, Benrey felt a splitting pain in his shoulder thanks to an object being slung at him. 

He cracked open his eyes, only to see that the object was in fact, a fist. A fist belonging to a hearty, round-looking scientist. 

“Benrey! You’re late! Did you lose track of time?” He said jovially, as Benrey just stared at him in silent shock.

“...Oh, don’t give me that look. What’s a little rough-housing between workplace associates? And it’s a preliminary suit test, too!” He grinned, giving Benrey a lighter tap on the shoulder.

“yeah. yeah. fuckin’... okay. cool. wwe on my ass. that’s fine,” Benrey mumbled. He was very thankful that suit seemed to cushion most of the blow, but somewhat afraid that this old man could even HIT a blow on the HEV suit. 

He looked back to the old man, but the jolly scientist’s attention was drawn to the guard looking behind Benrey. 

“Now, sir, I know the chamber is an exciting place, but you really cannot go in without a Hazard Suit! It’s for your own good, you know.” 

Gordon blinked once or twice, the shadow under his helmet darkening slightly. He then proceeded to smack his own vest with a grin, mimicking the scientist’s iron fists. 

“This vest is made of, uh... The same material! Yeah! So don’t worry, dude. Gordon’s got it ALL UNDER CONTROL, SIR!” 

“Oh! Well, why didn’t you say so?” The scientist said with a laugh. 

“what? no, no, you can’t just LET gordon MEANman in. he hates tests. and chambers. c’mon. please. show him your passport or something. just make him goooooo,” Benrey practically begged the older man. 

“Oh? Does he need a passport? Here!” The scientist flashed his own, revealing his name to be Dr. Coomer. 

Gordon scowled, pushing the passport down. “Mr. Coomer Don’t let this guy trick you. He’s up to no good. You’re leaking PERSONAL INFORMATION to him. Do you know that? Do you understand?” 

Coomer gave Benrey a look, and Benrey could only emit a muffled sound of anguish. 

Benrey headed deeper into the lab, only to be interrupted a bit later by Coomer’s familiar voice.

“BENREYYY! I found a buuug! Come look!” 

Benrey headed to the computer, not seeing Coomer anywhere. 

“dude.” He scratched his head. “this is the lamest game of hide and seek ever.”

“I’d think twice before saying that, my good bitch! HYAH!” And there was Coomer.

Popped out from inside the computer.

“oh nice.”

He wasn’t sure whether himself or Gordon looked more confused. 

Finally, he made it to the entrance to the test chamber. Although it had only taken minutes, it felt like hours thanks to the crazy old men he kept bumping into... and Gordon, who he literally kept bumping into thanks to the man’s lack of personal space. 

“okay. look, freeman. we’ve had our fun and shit, but the test chamber’s ahead. and if you go with me, you’re gonna die. you got that? game over. no more continues. zilch.” 

Gordon blinked once or twice, then just closed the gap between the two of them even more. “I’m not letting you steal anything.” 

Benrey sighed. “alright-“

His opening was interrupted by a barrage of... sound? To his face. It felt electric, and red-hot, and weird... but not too lethal.

“dude.”

He opened his eyes, to see the remains of some colourful orbs in between him and Gordon.

“if you wanna make out you just ask.”

Gordon huffed. “That is NOT what I was gonna do. That’s my BLACK MESA SWEET VOICE. And I can use it to KICK YOUR ASS if you mess ANYTHING up in the chamber. Got that?”

“yeah well you’re not going to the chamber. so it’s fine.” 

Before Gordon could reply, Benrey let the door close automatically, leaving Gordon outside. 

He sighed in relief. 

“okay. let’s do this for real now. weird, fucked up... valve shit isn’t gonna stop me from do-“ 

He trailed off, as the test chamber doors opened to reveal Gordon standing there triumphantly. 

“how.” 

“THE fuck.” 

His stunned silence was only matched by Gordon’s eerily determined stare, as Benrey headed in. As soon as he was near the centre, the PA crackled to life. 

“Mr. Ben-rey... I trusst you can, hear us alright?” That voice... its quirky way of speaking, yes, it could belong to nobody other than Dr. G. 

“oh yo, it’s my homie big g.”

“DOCTOR G.”

“DR. G! IT’S ME! GORDON! THE GUARD FROM EARLIER! DON’T WORRY, I’LL TAKE CARE OF THIS!” Gordon interrupted once more, shouting up to the small window the scientist was visible from. 

benrey sighed. “look, bro. why don’t you go hang out with dr. grooves and the rest if you like em so much?”

“You’re not getting rid of me THAT easy,” Gordon said with a determined stare.

“you’re a real trooper, bud. wanna get affected by radiation juice soooooo bad,” Benrey teased. He started climbing the ladder to the switch, only to hear the ladder wiggling more than it should. Naturally, he assumed Gordon was hot on his tail.

...Because of course he was. 

“guys. i hope you’re ready for EPIC WORKPLACE DEATH.” 

“Acceptable losses, my boy!” Dr. Coomer said from the window, with a thumbs-up that definitely should not be there. 

“dope. you guys know how to party, huh? woooo!” He accentuated his switch-flipping with a cheer. The rotor started up, and smoke began pouring out of it.

“yo, uh... we hotboxing in here or is that normal?”

“BENREY! You can’t smoke in the test chamber!” Bubby growled, pressing his face closer to the glass. 

“i’m not, bro. i hate hotboxing. maybe you’re hotboxing.” 

Bubby didn’t seem to have a retort for that.

Benrey climbed back down, only to see Gordon waiting for him there, tapping his foot angrily.

“What did you steal from up there.”

“nothing, man. you wanna frisk? here. frisk,” Benrey said, ramming himself into Gordon’s vest like Gordon had bumped into him so many times. “see? clean. no stealing. don’t want any lame ass techno stuff anyways.” 

“Mr. Ben-rey... do you ssee.. the next step?” Dr. G said into the mic. Apparently, he couldn’t tell that his impatient, drumming fingers were also being echoed into the mic. 

“yup. it’s coming up. the shopping cart and shit, right?” 

“CORRECT!” Dr. Coomer yelled a bit too loud into the mic. 

“we gotta push this joint into the light. easy win. gg.”

“Do it VERY carefully, Benrey!” Coomer added helpfully.

“Yess, my... associate here is correct. Care is... necessary, when it comes to Xen crystals. One wouldn’t want to... perhaps... cause an acc-ident,” Dr. G said.

Benrey was hoping VERY hard that the man was just being sarcastic. 

As Benrey laid his hands on the crystal holder, Gordon sprinted over back into sight.

“HOLD IT! I TOLD you not to touch anything! What are you doing with that?!” He yelled fiercely.

“pushin’.”

“‘s my job.” 

Gordon came up closer to the crystal, letting himself bask in its light. He reached out to touch it, and Benrey swore a flicker of familiarity danced across Gordon’s face...

Only for Gordon to whip around and touch his cheek firmly. 

“Why are you moving this.”

“‘s the next step.”

“I don’t think you want to move this.”

“wanna kiss about it?”

Apparently that worked, as Gordon was left blubbering and trying to think of a comeback.

“k cool. so. benrey’s awesome checklist of test. number one. we’re late. number two. my brain feels like dino egg oatmeal thanks to this shit. and big number three. two people in the chamber even though this isn’t a co-op session.”

“Benrey, I love counting, but I do have to warn you. If you don’t put the crystal in I WILL explode!” Coomer chirped.

“That’s a promise,” Bubby added.

“dope. you guys probably know better than the mit guys anyhoo.”

Benrey began to push the crystal in, with Coomer cheering him on.

“Yes! Yes! Nothing will go wrong!-“

And there was the beeping.

“OH NO! SOMETHING WENT WRONG!” 

“Look what you did,” Gordon said with a growl, his hair curling around like a tendril-

No, hold on, there were more things going on. He couldn’t focus on Gordon.

“Oh, dear. It looks like... someone DID have a little... acc-ident,” Dr. G said into the mic, sounding on edge. 

“YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE BROUGHT THE GUARD, BENREY!” Bubby yelled, and the machine only grew louder. 

Benrey stared, fascinated with the lighting and strobes that were wracking the test chamber, but his viewing party was quickly interrupted by a hearty cry of “COWABUNGA!!” and an old man landing in front of him then immediately falling over. 

Then it all went black. 

Benrey awoke groggily, only to see the test chamber was in shambles and the scientists- nor Gordon, but that was more of a nice surprise than a bad one- were nowhere to be seen. 

He decided they probably did the smart thing and migrated away from the area with the most concentrated damage, so he should try and find them. Perhaps them or any other survivors would be of help.

(...Though, from what the player could tell, any of the “non-special” AI were just as... good as the original games.) 

He made his way back into the winding corridors of Black Mesa, but eventually came to a halt when he saw Dr. Coomer sitting in a criss-cross.

“Ah! There’s the one who fucked the experiment up!”

Benrey frowned. “yo, man. that hurts. you think i fucked it up?”

“I think you fucked it up good and hard, Benrey.”

He scoffed, covering up his wounded gamer pride. “what-ever. you couldn’t stop it anyways.”

“I’ll stop your mouth!” 

“nooo, man. need that. to speak. and game.” 

“anyways. coomer. you seen that gordo guy? tall. guard. won’t take my passport.”

Coomer frowned. “That seems silly. Why wouldn’t he take your passport?”

“thinks i’m suspicious. seen him-?”

Bump.

And there he was.

“ohhhh, gordos. right on time. we were just talking about passports. want mine?” 

He frowned. “Did I not TELL you that you were a BREACH? Now look what you did.”

“don’t be like that, man. you were the one fuckin’ things up in the chamber.”

“You think I fucked it up??”

“I think you fucked it up, Gordon!” Coomer replied.

“see? coomer’s on my side.”

“You BOTH fucked it up!”

“c’mon, man.” 

Benrey sighed, heading down the hall. Coomer, of course, followed him, and regrettably, so did Gordon.

When they entered the computer room, they were surprised to find Dr. G leaning on a wall.

“Ahh... Mr. Ben-rey. You’re... late. Do help me with these... creatures, won’t you?” He said, gesturing to the headcrabs that were running around on the floor.

“that’s a little gross, man. do they want my feet pics? disgusting ground boys.” 

“Not... quite,” Dr. G said with a knowing smirk. That was when one of the crabs leapt up, aiming for Benrey’s head. 

Defenseless, all Benrey could do was crouch and run, but he opened his eyes to see Gordon blasting them all with some kind of foreign gun. The only thing he could say was “...hacks?”

Gordon jumped in surprise, then, turning back to Benrey with a smile, said “Oh. That’s MY passport. Pretty awesome, right?”

“i think it sucks.”

Gordon frowned. 

Benrey, however, was already in the next room.

“yo. bubby. cut that shit out, man. you’re setting a bad exampleeee. being near the lightning and shit.”

“Benrey, check this shit out! I’ve almost fixed the terminal!” Bubby said enthusiastically, almost glossing over his warning. 

“...AUGH! Bad news, Benrey. The network is down. Because our day couldn’t get any better.” 

“yeah, that’s cool n’ all, but y’know. what if you accidentally press the- uh- the resonance cascade button again.”

Bubby put a hand on his chin. “The resonance cascade... Never seen anything like it. And I was born here!” 

“Let’s GOOOOOOOO!” Coomer said, sending a busted down door flying in their direction. Clearly someone was excited. Benrey dodged it, then beckoned Bubby to follow him.

The next few hallways were somewhat dim, and mostly noiseless- which made his trek with the three old men exceptionally awkward. 

The only new conversation piece that came up was the fact that Gordon was down the next hall, with a laser pointed directly at his helmet.

“I should have known you’d try to run away with your tail between your legs. You COWARD!-“

Benrey cut him off. “UHHH YOUR HEAD BRO. THE LASER.”

Gordon looked at the laser, then back at Benrey with a slight confusion. Then, it was like something clicked, and Gordon ran away from the laser, screaming. 

“looks like someone doesn’t have gamer reaction time,” Benrey said with a smirk. 

He got beaned in the face with Sweet Voice for that.

Dr. G cleared his throat. “What Mr. Freeman is trying to say... is... He feels okay.” 

“Wait- you can read that?” Gordon said, looking over at Dr. G, who simply nodded. 

“Last one to the elevators is a rotten egg!” Coomer hollered triumphantly, and Bubby took off. 

...And the rest did not.

Benrey sighed, as Dr. G took to his left side and Gordon took to his right.

“you two are weird. do you know that? you’re super weird.”

“Some of us aren’t too... fond, of racing,” Dr. G chuckled.

“And I’m doing my JOB. As a SECURITY GUARD,” Gordon declared.

The three of them passed a-

(Holy shit, what?)

(IS THAT-)

(IS THAT HALF LIFE 2 BARNEY?)

(WHY’S HE T-POSING?!)

(Oh my fucking god.)

“...Dr. G, what’s up with him?” Gordon asked quietly.

“that’s my brother. uh. johnwicklover94,” Benrey butted in, leaving the poor Barney to his T-posing fate.

“Benrey, you need to stick with the group next time,” Bubby said crossly, but he couldn’t shake the tutorial voice present in his dialogue. 

“hey. gordos. check this shit out,” Benrey said, slamming the elevator button. Just like that, the elevator came crashing down, along with three people in it.

“BENREY! I don’t think that’s very funny!” Dr. Coomer said crossly. 

“Now, Benrey, you may have killed 3 innocent lives, but it’s important to stay calm! ...And find a place to hide the bodies!” Bubby said, coming up behind him. 

“Congratulations, Benrey! You’re a murderer!” Coomer finished. He also set the record for quickest change of heart known to man. 

“yeah whatever. achievement GAINED. now c’mon. we gotta do ladders bbbro,” he said, grabbing hold of the ladder, only for the rest of the science team to use him as a footstool.

Ow.

“Ohh, Benrey, you gotta get up here! Make it snappy!” Bubby yelled.

“yeah i’m TRYING but i’m stuck behind dr. coomer’s DUMPTRUCK ASS,” Benrey yelled back.

Coomer looked down, unamused. “You don’t become champion of the Black Mesa Boxing Ring by being a stick, Benrey.” 

“just move you and your ass upstairs.”

Eventually, both him and Coomer made it up, and to his surprise, Bubby’s BIG SURPRISE was.. another headcrab.

Benrey sighed, mowing it down. 

“...hey.”

“you guys ever wonder what a head crab tastes like?”

Benrey snickered, bending down and scooping some blood out of it, and Gordon watched with a horrified look on his face.

“Why is he doing that. Please tell me.”

Gordon’s cries fell on deaf ears. 

“ummm tastes gross. next.” Benrey got up, dumping the crab on the ground and idly soccer-kicking a dead scientist’s crab-head off.

“Benrey, my god! You just killed a man! ...You killed a lot of men, Benrey!” Bubby said with a huff, catching up to him.

“i know. isn’t it dope.”

“That is NOT DOPE! You’re NOTHING BUT TROUBLE!” Gordon shouted, earning nothing but a cackle from Benrey.

Now that Gordon wasn’t body-blocking him constantly, messing with him was FUN.

Benrey turned into the break room next, slapping the microwave. He was pleased to see lasagna fly everywhere.

“You’re paying for that,” Gordon grunted.

“Oh, sweet mana... from heaven,” Dr. G said, staring at the drink machine.

“whuzza? heaven? like heavenly sword for the playstation 3?”

Dr. G smirked. “Not quite. Thisss... so-da, is a favourite drink of my... progeny. Perhaps you would like it as well... Mr. Ben-rey....?” 

“cool. sustenance.” Benrey whacked the soda machine open with his crowbar, only for... everyone except Mr. G to drink is ravenously.

“duuuude, is this baja blast inn here?” Benrey asked.

His reply was just hog slurps. 

“...You know it would be wiser to... stock up on... resources, yes...?” Dr. G said with a raised brow.

“LIVE MAAAAAAS,” Benrey yelled in retort. 

The next stop was the locker room. Benrey immediately took it upon himself to crouch next to a corpse and ask the question nobody dared to:

“hey. who killed this?” 

“Oh, so NOW you’re so concerned about death. Not when you killed those three people in the elevator earlier,” Gordon accused.

“dude. i killed someone?”

“WH-YES. IN THE ELEVATOR.”

“niiiiiice.”

“YOU-!!” 

“Hello, Benrey!” Bubby interrupted.

“uhhh... yo. what’s going on, bro? how you livin’?”

“...”

“...”

“Hello, Benrey!”

Benrey stifled back a laugh and turned around to see... a LOT of scientists. Jeez. More refugees than he remembered. Maybe he should blow them all up before they- 

“ALRIGHT EVERYBODY, LISTEN UP! MY NAME IS GORDON FREEMAN. I’M GONNA LEAD EVERYONE TO THE SURFACE. DOES ANYONE KNOW ANYTHING?” 

Bubby and Benrey looked at each other.

Bubby silently passed Benrey a match. 

“-OH MY GOD WHY DID THEY ALL BLOW UP.” 

Benrey giggled, heading out as he stepped over some corpses and high fived Bubby, as the latter got another “Hello, Benrey!” in. 

After some adventuring- Well, mostly meandering. They found a department near the lobby that had techno music playing WAY too loud (wonder what that was about?), nearly fell in a giant hole, and found a drawer full of Tic-tacs, but Dr. G said they were ‘spoken for’. 

The next exciting highlight of their trip was nearly being mauled by some doglike things!

“Hey, Benrey. Check this shit out,” Bubby said. “I’m going to call these bad boys PEEPER-PUPPIES.”

“That’s not-“ Benrey and Dr. G said at the same time, but their eyes met and Benrey shrugged.

“sure, man. peeper puppies it is.”

“BACK, FOUL BEASTS!” Coomer shouted, wrestling with one of them. 

“Why are you shooting at me?” Gordon piped up all of a sudden, standing in front of Benrey.

“dude i’m not. i’m a gamer. we don’t miss. i think you’re getting in my way.”

“I should have never let you in here.” 

“HYAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!”

The good news was the puppies were dead. 

The bad news was Bubby found another NPC.

“Benrey, you’ve got to see this. This guy kinda looks like me! Ha!” 

Benrey walked over, looking the man up and down.

(If Bubby recognizes the model as his own.. Wonder what’ll happen.)

“oh shit. this dude’s hogging all the donuts,” Benrey said flatly, pulling out a gun and shooting him in the head. 

“Ay, carumba...” Coomer said softly.

“Hello, Benrey! Nice shot. Got my fucking coat wet, though.” 

“cool.”

The group walked off, leaving the corpse alone...

And as soon as he was sure they were out of sight, Gordon, crawling on the wall in a distinctly inhuman way, began singing a cocoon for Benrey’s prey. 

As the group ended up somehow growing and setting another scientist on fire, Gordon, slinking behind, prepared a second corpse for the taking. 

“...Big plans, I assume, Mr. Freeman...?” Dr. G said quietly, as Gordon wiped his mouth and turned the corner.

“I was making sure that Benrey didn’t loot any of the corpses. Not to worry, sir... you’re safe with me around.”

Dr. G smiled. “Of course. I assume you wish to... catch up with the group, yes?”

Gordon nodded, linking arms with Dr. G like he was escorting him.

The two turned a few corners only to find the rest of them staring at a dumpster.

“Okay, what- What’s going on here? Have you finally stooped to dumpster diving?” Gordon asked, and Benrey silently called him over. Gordon looked in the hole, only to see... “...Dr. Coomer?”

BANG!

“My clone!”

“HA!” Benrey high-fived Coomer, and Gordon slowly wiped the blood off his face. 

“I... was unaware humans had those.” 

“Most don’t!” Bubby corrected cheerfully. 

“this place is weeeeird, gordos. you woulda known that. if you work here.”

“I DO WORK HERE!”

Benrey grinned, and dove underwater to the next area.

“BENREY! YOU CAN’T-“ Underwater, Gordon continued their argument, but was interrupted by Benrey.

“BBBBBBBBBBBBBB.”

Gordon’s cheeks flushed pink with embarrassment, and he quietly went “BBBBBB” back. Like any human would. 

Dr. G rolled his eyes. 

As the gang emerged from the water, Benrey had to fix his hair. Some had gotten in his face, but it didn’t seem too wet-

Never mind. Gordon shook all his filth off like a wet dog and now he’s soaked.

“okaaaay. break time.” 

“Oh, I love breaks! Hello, Benrey!” Bubby said cheerfully.

“Excellent for my back,” Coomer added.

“Yes... not everyone can keep up the, pace, it seems.”

“A break. That’s a good idea!” Gordon grinned.

“woah. you’re smiling. that’s a weird sign.”

“BREAK!” Gordon hollered, and Benrey got beaned in the face by a purple and red stream of music, knocking him out cold.

“...Did Benrey just fucking die?” Bubby asked.

“Er... no,” Dr. G explained.  
“Purple and red means time for bed.”

Gordon dusted his hands off triumphantly.

That’s right! Humans need their sleep!

...So why was everyone else looking at him like that?


	2. Act 1: Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> HOLY SHIT A SKELETON!

“Rise and shine, Mr. Ben-rey...” was the first thing that he heard. 

The next thing was the operatic singing of a security guard. 

And... a dog barking, for some reason?

Benrey’s eyes fluttered open- How long was he out for?

(In-game, of course. Whatever Gordon had just done had triggered a blackout sequence that hadn’t lasted longer than a few seconds.)

(Heh- if Gordon had ACTUALLY knocked him out, that would have been a real creepypasta.)

(He could hear Chills’ voice now. ‘ _Number fifteen. My Half-Life Game is Haunted. The last thing you want in your Half-Life game is a haunted security guaaaard-‘)_

“AAAAAAAAA~”

“okay, okay, i’m getting up, jeeeeeeez...” Benrey groaned, adjusting himself and sitting up, only to see a stern-looking Gordon and a calm-looking Dr. G sitting near his feet, the latter having quite a few pigeons perched on him. 

“dude watch out. what if the pigeons shit on you,” he said groggily. 

“Oh, no... they won’t. I’m... quite sure of that,” Dr. G replied. 

“you guys are so weird.”

Benrey looked around, searching for the two remaining members of his little yeehaw as he climbed on top of a barrel to level himself over his two companions. 

Coomer looked up from arm-wrestling Bubby. 

“Oh! Awake at last! I was starting to think that I would have to give you a good clock across the jaw!”

“I was against that, Benrey,” Bubby interrupted. The two of them hurried over to where everyone else was sitting, and Coomer got to work messing with one of the pigeons. 

“so welcome to the group meeting,” Benrey began. 

“The yeehaw!” Bubby added.

“yeah. the illustrious yeehaw. so uhh, first order of business. dr. g, i don’t think you have a gun. that sucks hard.”

“Forgive me for being blunt, Mr. Ben-rey, but I can assure you... I have no need for... conventional weapons.”

The two locked eyes for a while, Benrey urging him to say anything else that wasn’t vague as shit.

“Would you like me to... demonstrate? On this pigeon?” 

“yeah. i think you should. i think pigeons aren’t allowed down here.”

No, wait-!

After that terrible choice of wording from Benrey, Gordon perked up like an attack dog and waved all the pigeons off of Dr. G frantically, beaning them all down with the Sweet Voice as best as he could. 

The group watched Gordon run across the room like they were watching a tennis game, quietly ‘oooh’ing and ‘ahhh’ing whenever he managed to catch one. 

“Benrey? I’m burning,” Bubby said, matter-of-factly, mostly due to the fact that he was.

“huh whuh? why??” Benrey asked, staring at his burning companion. 

“Hello, Benrey!” 

Luckily that was quickly ended by Coomer going nuts with the fire extinguisher. 

Which is, more or less, a summary of how the science team ended up walking through the halls of Black Mesa covered in extinguisher foam and goopy blue pigeon feathers. 

“oh dude. big pit,” Benrey said with a laugh. 

“No. NO. This doesn’t look structurally intact at all. Do you have any idea how dangerous this is, Benrey? Do you?” Gordon countered, stepping in front of him and refusing to let him go past the broken catwalk. 

“It does look pretty unstable,” Coomer muttered in agreement.

“no look it’s fine. watch.”

Before Gordon got a chance to respond, he took a running leap and grabbed onto some maintenance pipes near the edge of the wall. Boosting himself up, he waved his arms and called for the others to join him.

“Here I come, Benrey!” Bubby shouted, going what Benrey swore was Mach 5 and sliding onto the pipes with him. Then came Coomer, and finally Dr. G.

Gordon was still standing there like a stubborn bastard.

“cool. goodbye forever then.”

Benrey shook his head and made his way across the gap. His soles finally touched the concrete ground instead of metal pipe, and he looked up to assess his next corridor... only to see Gordon standing near the wall.

“how did you-“ 

“I... took the stairs.”

“cool.”

The tunnel eventually opened up to a room full of barnacles, where Bubby gleefully loaded his gun and prepared to go APE on them.

Suddenly, he dropped his gun, and looked over at Benrey with a smile.

“Benrey, look! Ropes! We can use them for big pits!” 

Coomer grabbed the gun from Bubby quickly. “Let me show you how it’s done, Benrey! HYAH!” He jumped into the fray, firing at the first barnacle... and completely missing.

“oh my fucking god,” Benrey wheezed.

“someone sucks at barnacles.” 

He took out his gun and fired at the barnacle currently choking Dr. Coomer to death, but the poor old man went out of the frying pan and into the fire as the barnacle releasing him just sent him onto the floor roughly. 

(It was nothing to worry about. The player was pretty sure all the NPCs were godmoded.)

“BENREY! I BROKE MY LEGS!” Coomer announced cheerfully. 

After that nightmare of a barnacle room- Benrey was more than a bit pissed at Bubby, who seemed to forget barnacles were a thing despite his insistence that he knew what they were- Benrey was met with another, equally airborne nightmare. 

“hey gordo.”

“you think hopping on these boxes is safe?” 

Gordon’s face went red. “I hope that’s a fucking rhetorical question.”

“dooope, we have the gordos seal of approval. let’s glide,” Benrey cackled. 

“yo, can you guys- can you guys even make this? you’re all wrinkly and shit.”

“hey. bubby.”

“Hello, Benrey! What?”

“how old are youuuuu.”

Bubby scoffed. “Don’t you know it’s rude to ask an elder his age? Just watch and learn.” 

Having said that, Bubby took a magnificent leap off the platform and plummeted straight into the void below.

“...old. got it.” 

“BUBBY!!” Gordon shouted, leaning over the railing a bit too much and almost falling himself- Benrey silently caught him by the foot and left him dangling there for a bit before pulling him back up. 

“Look what you did. Now a man’s DEAD because you’re breaking security protocol!” Gordon yelled, as soon as Benrey got him up. 

“nah, this is all in the book. i got a friend in security. i got many friends.”

“NO IT IS NOT!-“ 

“catch me, then,” Benrey said with a coy smirk, hopping onto one of the boxes. It swung with a feverish momentum, and Dr. G gave him an unimpressed once-over. 

“you hop boxes much?” Benrey asked him.

“No, not... usually. This entire...or-deal has not been in my usual skill set for a long... long time.”

“you gonna elaborate on that, or-“

“I’d rather not. It’s... more entertaining for you that way, wouldn’t you agree...?” 

“i’m pretty sure i got buckets of fun with freeman chasing me down already.”

“speaking of which.” 

He took off at a breakneck pace across the boxes, hearing Gordon not far behind. He landed at last, doing a bit of an epic gamer dodge-roll onto the platform. 

“You almost hit me, asshole- Hello, Benrey!” Bubby cut himself off, clasping his hands together enthusiastically.

“so remind me how you two got to this before me?” 

“I have PowerLegs!” Coomer answered, which didn’t explain anything. 

“Mr. Ben-rey, look... up ahead. An el-evator. Perhaps we should ride it,” Mr. G said, dodging the incoming barrelling figure that was Gordon finishing the physics puzzle. 

“wipeout,” Benrey said to Gordon quickly before stepping over his crashed body to head to the elevator. 

Gordon got up quickly, of course, and closed the gap between him and Benrey even quicker- as usual. They all got in the elevator, and as they were waiting, Coomer punched Benrey lightly in the shoulder.

“the fuck, man? that’s mean. why are you being so mean all the time?” Benrey whined.

“I’m not being mean! I’m proving I have the guns and you should keep paying attention to me!” Coomer replied happily.

“oh. that a threat? you threatening me? want to go? wanna fight right now? worldstar?”

“Oh no, Benrey, we should save our energy for the journey ahead.”

“...I can always kick your ass later!” 

Just on time, the elevator opened, and Dr. G elegantly pushed past Benrey. “This is where we... get off, Mr. Ben-rey.”

“i know how elevators work, bro. maybe tell gordumb that.”

“Are you trying to say I don’t know how elevators work? I know how elevators work. I use them at work every day. When I go to work. At Black Mesa.”

Benrey tried to hide his laughter. Oh, Gordon, you were truly making this TOO easy. 

“oh shit shut up. there’s electric,” Benrey said, putting a hand out to stop Gordon in his tracks. Indeed there was electric, as a rather unfortunate combination of ceiling tile and water was taking place in front of their current way forward. 

“Yes, but look! A hole! A hole can be used to get around electrical hazards. Even you should understand that, right- HELLO, Benrey!” Bubby said, starting to crawl into the hole.

“love you too, man.” Benrey ducked down and began crawling. He also immediately remembered how much he hated crawling, but one does what one must. 

The group finally made it to the end- or, well, AN end, but the most exciting thing that happened there was Coomer getting caught in the fan and spinning around wildly for a few minutes. 

He got unstuck.

No thanks to Benrey.

“Benrey. If you need assistance, the SuperPlayer feature can guide you!” Bubby said, crawling behind Benrey.

“don’t patronize me, old man.”

“IF YOU NEED ASSISTANCE, BENREY.” 

“okay, okay, i get it... bubby scary moment.”

Finally, Benrey dropped back out of the vent, shock-free thanks to avoiding the Electrical Hazard. More trouble was waiting up ahead, though not before they took a quick soda break. 

“g. i know you hate soda. keep an eye out for any ropes, ‘k?” Benrey said, cracking a can of Mountain Dew open and chugging it. 

“Of course... We would hate for any of our teammates to get... caught, wouldn’t we?” Dr. G nodded, taking a seat at a nearby table. 

“Oh, Benrey-“ 

And Bubby had gotten himself caught immediately. 

“god fucking dammit i can’t even live mas anymore,” Benrey groaned, filling the barnacle full of lead. 

“Careful with that thing. Look, Benrey, a rope! We can use these for big pits, you know!” 

“i think you’re an idiot.” 

“I’m smarter than you.”

“i think you’re shit.”

“Benrey...” Dr. G said again, and Benrey sighed, shooting Coomer free of a second rope. 

“okay this place sucks. bad vibes. let’s mooooove,” Benrey said, clipping his mic a bit. (Can you blame the player? Babysitting old men was getting annoying.) 

The next hall still had that repulsive checkered floor, but there were pigeons! Hooray! 

...And boxes.

“oh dude look. a physics puzzle,” Benrey said, nudging Dr. G. 

“I hope you aren’t... asssking me to solve it for you...?” He cocked an eyebrow. 

“Benrey, this is important! We can use these boxes to-“

Bubby stopped mid-sentence.

Benrey learned closer, waiting for him to finish his sentence.

“Hello, Benrey!”

And Benrey’s hair was on fire.

Patting it out, Benrey snorted. “alright cool. he’s busted. puzzle time.” 

“watch how a real gamer plays it. game clam style.” Benrey ran up to the boxes, shoving the biggest one slowly...

...Too slowly. 

This box should be lighter. Was there something on it? Benrey looked up.

There was Gordon, standing on the box. 

“What do you think you’re doing?” 

“um. working.” 

“On what? What does pushing boxes have to do with work? Huh?” 

“we gotta gooo. up the ladder. but i’m a petite man. too small. i need a boost. do you get it?”

Gordon blinked once or twice, mulling over what Benrey said in his head, and for a minute there, Benrey thought he finally got through to him.

“That doesn’t sound safe.”

“you don’t sound safe.” 

“Look at what you’re doing to people! What if one of you slips and falls and then dies because of the slippery box. This is dangerous.”

“boxes aren’t slippery, gordon weirdman.” 

“THEY COULD BE!” 

With a grunt, Benrey finally got the box into position, and started to climb.

“GET OFF.”

“no.”

“GET OFF NOW!”

“noooooo, man.” 

Gordon grabbed Benrey by the shoulders, staring him down.

“dude.”

“are we about to kiss right now?”

Benrey leaned forward, puckering his lips for a smooch, and Gordon’s face went red. He stumbled backwards, only to fall off the box with a THUD.

“oh whoops.”

“guess you were right about the box. heh.”

Benrey climbed up the ladder, followed by the rest, and finally, a very grumpy Gordon muttering about OSHA regulations. 

Benrey poked his head out of the shaft, seeing a pretty regular room with cardboard boxes. Great. He hoisted himself up one leg at a time, but as soon as he got up, he was getting shot at.

“the hell, man?! who’s doing that? who’s shooting at me?” Benrey said, ducking back down. 

** “Mr. Benrey, this is our- our turetting test room...” **

“whuh? which one of you said that?” Benrey whispered, looking up at the silent scientists. 

** “ Oh. Oops.”  **

After that, the mysterious echoing voice was nowhere to be seen. 

Maybe Benrey really was losing his mind. 

Luckily, the others weren’t, so the so-called “turretting test room” was no match for the awesome might of the Science Team. 

“cool cool. we all got our limbs?” Benrey asked.

“Most likely!” Coomer said, which was not as helpful as he might think. 

“Ah, Mr. Ben-rey... I found a pissstol,” Dr. G said, holding it up. 

“great dude.”

PEW!

Benrey blinked once or twice, looking at the bullet hole in the wall beside him then back at Dr. G.

“...That was a test.” 

“a turretting test?”

“Exactly,” he said with a knowing smile. 

They exited the little bunker, and finally, some stairs! Benrey hadn’t seen those in a while. There was a guard lurking near the top there. Maybe he could get Gordon to leave him alone if he got this guard’s approval.

“yo-“

Bubby charged in front of him and kicked him, moving back immediately after. And of course, the guard pulled out his gun and started shooting at Benrey. 

“You see? Even just being here makes everyone do stupid things that put everyone in danger. You’re harassing people. You’re the worst,” Gordon said as Benrey tried frantically to dodge bullets. He finally was saved by Dr. G blowing a hole in the angry guard’s head.

“bubby. what the hell.”

“Hello, Benrey!” 

Ignoring the corpse, Benrey made his way up the stairs. Up top was another break room, it seems, with a TV that was sparking like crazy. 

“yo, who- who broke this? who broke tv?” 

“Don’t worry, Benrey. I’ve got this. FIX YOURSELF, DAMN TV!” Coomer yelled, basketball-dunking a med kit onto the TV.

The med kit quickly caught fire. 

Gordon, meanwhile, was lurking near another guard, and whispering to him. “You see this? You see how they’re fucking up all the time? This guy doesn’t even work here.” 

“woah, woah, freemen, shut up for a sec. i hear creatures.” Benrey stepped forward into the dark unknown, the science team scooting in behind him. 

Benrey’s prediction was correct- too bad these were big, scary creatures.

Dr. G took the lead, his trigger finger impressively taking out each and every last one. He twirled the gun around in his hand confidently, standing over his work.

“daaamn. dr. gun. i thought you didn’t like weapons,” Benrey said, coming up and patting him on the back. 

“Well, I am... Not a person who, needs to use them, per se...”

“That does not stop me from having... a little fun.” 

He smirked. 

“okay, well, since doctor sex over here is on the fucking ball today, let’s take a hooha or whatever bubby called it.”

“Don’t call me that.” 

They moved out of the hallway- because a dark hallway full of corpses is not an ideal place for a hooha- and came to an empty-looking square with decent enough lighting. They all sat down, save for Gordon, who was perfectly happy looking around the corner like a creep. 

“so who here’s got family. c’mon. gimme the deeeeets.”

“I did have a wife, but they took her in the divorce. Bastards!” Coomer said, shaking his fist somewhat comically. He didn’t seem too pressed about it.

“Hello, Benrey!” And Bubby was busted as usual. 

“kay. cool. cool cool. how bout you, g. got any family?” 

Dr. G looked away for a bit. “Mr. Ben-rey... if I divulged everything to you so soon, things would get very... boring.”

“But I will tell you I have... a progeny.”

“spill the beans. name. i want a name. name. name. name. name. c’moooon.”

Dr. G rolled his eyes. He stayed silent for a while, then decided to humour him. “...Tommy.” 

“aw. BOOOOO. thought it would be some dope shit like kakathar or something.” 

“name your progeny kratos.”

“I am done with this conversation.”

“fine. be that way. i’m gonna go ask gordon.”

Benrey got up, making his way to Gordon, who was curiously just staring at the guard and mimicking his position.

“yoooo, guardin’. tell me about your family.”

“Classified,” Gordon snapped immediately. 

“rude.”

“I’m not rude! See, here. I have a son. His name’s Joshua.” Gordon pulled out what looked like a default Target frame, even down to the generic-looking baby picture inside.

Benrey snorted. “looks a bit... shit.” 

“SHIT?!” Gordon yelled. 

“What kind of fucked-up guy tells someone their BABY is SHIT. See? This guy is clearly trouble. Don’t trust him,” Gordon said, turning to the guard.

“yeah well watch this.” Benrey stepped away from Gordon and to the guard, and started dancing for him.

“...Are you voguing?”

“What is he doing?” Coomer asked, turning the corner.

“Oh my god. Don’t DO that to him. He doesn’t want that,” Gordon continued, as Benrey finished throwing it back. 

“You see? This is why people are scared of you. Look what you’re doing to people. You can’t just-“

Benrey continued backing it up. 

“NOOOOOO!”

“He’s not attracted to youuuuuuu.” 

Benrey started voguing Gordon.

“STOP-!”

After a well-deserved intervention from Dr. G, the group made its way to the next area. It was cold- and a bit wet. 

“hrgghhhhhhh..... colonel, tell me about this cold zone.....” Benrey said, poking Bubby in the shoulder. 

“This is the frozen goods department, Benrey. The meat has dangerous properties. I could get your ass with it if you ever fuck up.” 

“oh no thanks, i’m a virgo.” 

The trek through the frozen goods department was pleasantly free of attacking meat, whatever Bubby meant, and the only real problem was that Benrey’s face felt icy- although he liked it that way. 

Unfortunately, there was perhaps their biggest obstacle thus far right ahead-

A moving platform. 

He did a quick head count-

...Hm.

Gordon must have slipped away at some point. 

Benrey, of course, was a master of platforming and parkour, so he rolled onto the platform with no problem.

“hop on. let’s go on a riiiiiiide.” 

The scientists stared at him like he was speaking French.

Bubby threw a bomb.

“the fuck, man? friendly fire... so lame...”

Another bomb went off.

“lame, lame, so totally laaaame...” 

The platform made it back to the group, and Bubby hopped onto it.

“I could have done that in my sleep,” Bubby said, elbow-bumping with Benrey. 

“ok now you coomer. c’mon.” 

“Here comes Coomer!” Coomer shouted, making a break for it- only to get stuck where a video game character should not be stuck.

“aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-“

Great. The platform came back. That was enough creepypasta for Benrey today, thanks! 

“Here comes Coomer! Here comes Coomer! Here comes Coomer! Here comes Coomer!” 

Benrey erupted into a fit of laughter. He was going to say it the entire time, huh? 

He was on the floor, a giggling mess.

“Nice work, Dr. Coomer!” 

Oh, good, Bubby just made him laugh harder. 

Dr. G crawled into the vent, and sidestepped the corpsing Benrey. 

“HELLO, Benrey!”

Last but not least, Coomer made it in the vent. 

He looked at Benrey, then back up at Bubby. “...What’s he laughing so hard about?” 

After catching his breath, Benrey crawled through the vent, emerging in a greenly-lit room.

Coomer stuck a hand over Benrey’s face. “Benrey, LOOK! The meat is attacking! Just like Bubby foretold!”

Benrey waved Coomer’s hand out of his face.

Dr. G shot at the barnacles before the two bumbling old men could do what they do best, and they crossed from their original vent to a new one.

“jeez. so many vents. place is too big. why’s it so big?” Benrey complained.

“It’s a big large!” Coomer said happily.

“...huh?”

“It’s a big large, Benrey.” 

“nice.” 

Benrey dropped out of the vent, striking a pose, only to grunt sadly when nobody was around to see it. 

“okayyyy, gang, let’s mooosey on,” He called to the rest of the science team, who had a bit less success getting out than he did. 

They went out into the small clearing, dodging a scientist that was ejected from the window- dodging him quite well considering he just went back inside.

(Damn VR glitches.)

“Benrey, look at this! This nice man just injected me with drugs!” Coomer announced, pointing to his rolled-up arm triumphantly.

“oh that’s cool. what drugs though?” Benrey asked, poking his head through the window.

He quickly regretted this decision, however, as the mysterious drugs-man went soaring through the window and got punched into the wall so hard he left a crater.

“THE DRUGS ARE TAKING EFFECT!” 

Benrey couldn’t help but laugh, his giggle for sending him bumping into a very familiar material. 

A security vest. 

“BENREY. You think you can just shirk me and get away with it?! Ha! You probably think I’m bad at my job. Don’t you? NOT TODAY, FUCKER! Gordon Freeman is HERE!” He shouted, leaning over Benrey for emphasis.

“‘s cool and all but uhh. i’m not benrey.”

Gordon’s brows furrowed as he blinked in confusion. “No. You’re fucking with me.”

“never seen you before in my life. this is my first time meeting you.”

“Yeah? Well, what’s your name?” 

“ss...”

“stong.” 

Gordon’s hair flared up in anger, almost like it had a mind of its own- but before Benrey could investigate further, he got beaned in the face by a couple of Sweet Voice Orbs. Sucking them up involuntarily, Benrey glanced up at Gordon silently, as the guard tapped his foot, waiting for something.

“-m’ name’s benrey,” Benrey spat out, covering his mouth as soon as he said it. He whipped around to Dr. G, who was giving Gordon an incredulous look.

“...Oh, you require my assis-tance? Very well... Blue to chartreuse means ‘tell me the truth’., Mr. ... Ben-rey. People don’t like it when you lie to them...” 

“ok so stinky gordo has a truth beam. that’s soooo op.” 

Gordon smirked smugly. “Wouldn’t need to happen if you weren’t sneaking around where you don’t work.”

“i work here, bro.” 

“I’m going to have to follow you, sir.” 

“yup.”

Great.

Business as usual, then. 

“BENREY!” Dr. Coomer’s voice rang out, ruining whatever argument Benrey and Gordon were having.

“whaaat?” Benrey whined, pivoting around on his heel, only to see coomer angrily tapping on some graffiti that said BENREY. 

“Did you do this? Now, Benrey, I do encourage a creative outlet and destruction, but graffiti is NEVER the answer!” 

“Benrey, you fucking suck,” Bubby added. 

“yeah. i knoooow how to suck and i do it welllll. bye.” Benrey hopped down the chute and grabbed onto the ladder, leaving the old men in stunned silence and Gordon furiously trying to hide his blush underneath his helmet. 

Once they climbed the ladder, Benrey had a few laughs at the expense of a dead NPC, but the laughs quickly ended when Dr. G pulled down on a fire door like his life depended on it.

“dr gerk why did you do thatttt. that’s not cool,” Benrey whined some more, sliding under the door.

“Practice, Benrey!” Coomer added helpfully.

“for what though.”

“Now Benrey, try to be careful. These fire doors can be shut if you’re not careful- Hello, Benrey!” And here comes Bubby. 

“come ONNNN save the lecture for later.”

“I’ll hold it up for you, Bubby! C’mon!” Gordon yelled, heaving as he fought against the door’s mechanisms. 

“I’ll never forget you... Gordie,” Bubby said solemnly, as he ran through the door and moved forward. 

“guys he’s not dead yet.” 

...

Benrey smirked, watching Gordon stay still even when the door was closing.

“i cannot WAIT for you to see hell,” he said, getting up to rejoin the group.

So, Gordon was left with half of him stuck under a door. He drummed his fingers on the ground thoughtfully, then stopped. He concentrated, body slowly sliding through and glitching into a mass that was a mixture of both polygons and alien features. Eventually, the glitching subsided, and Gordon dusted his human vest off. 

Yes. He’s a human. A human who works at Black Mesa and catches troublemakers. 

But... maybe for a while he could assume a form that was better for sneaking around. After all, most criminals are caught in secret.

He smirked, watching his human form unravel to reveal bone beneath it.

Meanwhile, back with the science team, Benrey was still having his own problems.

“Benrey? I’m getting full. You better do shit about that,” Bubby said, folding his arms.

“maybe if you drink more baja blast it’ll go away.”

“It won’t go away. It’ll make it worse. Soon I’ll need to use a bathroom!” 

“jesus christ why did they program you to be this way.” 

Benrey looked back over at Dr. G, who was staring- was he staring? Benrey couldn’t tell thanks to his face being covered in blood.

“dude. you got something on your face.”

“Ahhh... Much appreciated,” Dr. G said quietly, taking out a handkerchief and cleaning his face off. “You never know with... these things.” 

Benrey just gave him a bump on the elbow and continued on.

“Benrey, these are dangerous barrels! Don’t fuck up and set them off, now!” Bubby chimed in, doing immediately that.

“brooooo. you suck at this. the- the ‘don’t touch barrels’ game.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not touching anything- BENREY, LOOK! BARRELS!”

At least now Benrey knew to shield his eyes. 

“why are you tanking these shots like a pro.”

“Black Mesa made us fireproof, Benrey!”

“dope.”

Of course, the natural enemy of fire was water, which means of COURSE after a fire hazard came a water hazard. Of course. Because Benrey’s day couldn’t get any better.

“Benrey, help me! Help me right now or so help me God-“ Bubby yelled out from an elevator shaft.

“BUBBY! I’VE GOT YOU!” Coomer sprinted to his friend, accidentally football-ramming both of them down the elevator shaft in a spectacular display of stupidity. 

Thankfully, by some sort of black magic, they made it out alright, and the hellish water room was over and done with.

“Benrey, look! Soldiers! I bet they’re here to help us!” Coomer said excitedly, tapping him on the shoulder. 

Now, if Benrey was a gamer- and he was- he’d know more than anything that usually military and companion did not go hand in hand. Still, he was ready to take that chance.

“yooo, what’s up, man? wanna go play some video games?”

Benrey was met with a gunshot. 

“lame.” 

He pulled out his own gun, and the science team followed suit, running and gunning down soldiers as far as the eye could see.

Their quest ended when Dr. G pressed yet another fire safety button, despite Benrey’s accusatory glares. 

He walked down the hall, and came to a stop at some gravestones. Considering they had chased whatever soldier that had been up there away, it was the one interesting thing to look at in the room.

“You know, I know what it says,” Bubby said confidently.

“Is that right..?” Dr. G said, stroking his chin.

“Yes! Benrey, you better listen, because I won’t say it again. It says-“ 

There was a long, irritating silence.

“Got that?”

“yup. good reading bro.”

He ventured forward, past the gravestones, and leaned on the wall.

“Oh! Oh! Benrey! I have an idea! Let’s take a commemorative picture!” Coomer suggested, leaning from one foot to the other. 

“i mean, i’m not- i’m not very um. photogenic. so you might-“

“Oh, stop being so humble and join us!” Bubby added sternly, patting the floor next to him.

Benrey scoffed with a smile and rolled his eyes. He laid down and did a classic ‘Draw me like one of your French girls’ poses, and the flash went off.

Apparently that flash startled someone, and that someone wasn’t the four of them. Benrey turned as soon as he heard the sound of someone taking off, and broke into a sprint after them. 

“bro, why you leaving so soon? you got a playstation plus voucher you’re hidin’ from us? it’s not nice to hog, dude.”

Benrey’s feet glided against the floor as he came to a bit of a rolling stop, observing the soldier trapped between him and the closed door.

He was wearing the standard military uniform, just like the other soldiers, but unlike the ‘macho’ soldiers they had gunned down before, this one hadn’t rolled up their sleeves. Their bag was much bigger than the others’, and a stark shade of orange, almost like a poisonous moss you’d find on a tree. And their face... well, he couldn’t tell thanks to the gas mask they wore.

The soldier pressed himself against the wall silently, apparently unprepared for the ambush.

“you got ps3?”

Benrey leaned closer, and the solider whipped a smoke bomb out of his bag, slamming it on the ground. Benrey coughed, shielding his face. Dammit! 

When he opened his eyes again, the soldier was gone, just like he was never there at all. 

“Fine shooting, Benrey!” Bubby cheered.

Benrey wasn’t even going to question why he said that.

“Everyone, look! I see an exit up ahead!” Coomer shouted, beckoning them to come further.

“Excellent work, Dr. Coomer!” Bubby said cheerfully.

“Thanks, Professor!”

“...Doctor.”

“Professor.”

“DOCTOR.”

Benrey was getting Gordon flashbacks.

The group ran up to the elevator, and Coomer proudly read the sign out loud to accentuate his amazing discovery. “SURFACE ACCESS, BENREY! LOOK!” 

“so it is. neat.”

The elevator came down and opened, and Benrey herded the group in like cattle.

“let’s discuss our epic game plan for when we get outta here,” Benrey said, leaning on the edge of the elevator.

“I’m going back in!” Coomer said happily.

“I want to find more foes to best, so I can become the Black Mesa Boxing Champion!” 

“oh nice.”

The elevator reached its peak, and Benrey couldn’t help but smile as he took in the sight of the surface. A real, natural source of light... it was a welcome change-

Oh, and the battlefield was swamped with warfare, also.

Fuck.

The group had no choice but to just gun it, which Benrey had no qualms with. He hated stealth missions anyways.

“okay guys go go go go don’t be stupid. don’t die. follow me. wh-“

He was rammed into very quickly by something he could only describe as.. bones? He looked over, seeing the perpetrator running off instead of standing there creepily or something.

“OH YOOOO A SKELETON! EASTER EGGGG. BBBBBBBBBBBBB.” 

Benrey got a bit too excited over the EASTER EGG, so Dr. G had to grab him and pull him into shelter.

“yooooohoho, did you see that? a skeleton man. fuckin’ skeleton,” Benrey said excitedly.

“How strange... that he chooses to go down... THISSS path...” Dr. G said, narrowing his eyes and watching the skeleton disappear into the background with fascination. 

“skelly, skelly, skelleskelleskelly...” 

Dr. G could see the man was preoccupied, so he took Benrey by the hand and led him back downstairs.

“Benrey! Check it out! We made it black into Back Mesa!” Bubby said confidently. 

“Oh, goody! I can’t wait to become boxing champion!” Coomer cheered, pumping his fists in the air. 

“nice outside speedrun. now we gotta do uhh. shelter speedrun,” Benrey said. He started off quickly ahead of the group, looking for a place for them to rest that wouldn’t involve shrapnel. 

Before they could do anything, though, fate had decided to punish Benrey.

Another vent. 

Thankfully, it was one of the less crammed ones-

** “HE’S THE ONE THEY CALL DR. FEELGOOD, HE’S THE ONE THAT MAKES YOU FEEL ALRIGHT-“ **

Benrey jumped, looking around to find the source of the random-ass Motley Crüe.

** “...Sorry! My bad!” **

There was that voice again. Benrey hoped this stupid vent wouldn’t cause any more trouble.

Oh, shit. There’s the skeleton. 

Benrey immediately started sprinting to it, only to get blocked by the responsible hand of Dr. G.

“Now, Mr. Ben-rey... you really ought to be more... care-ful around strangers, yes...?”

He gave Benrey a knowing look, and Benrey took it as a sign that he knew something was up. 

The skeleton began singing sweetly, and Benrey gulped. 

Yup.

He knew that the Black Mesa Sweet Voice was always a bad sign considering its pioneer.

“you gonna, uh, translate? or...”

Dr. G remained silent, staring the skeleton down, which seemed to only... please it? Aggravate it? Whatever was happening, the skeleton was getting louder.

Like, REALLY loud.

What the fuck??

Benrey covered his ears, a telltale whine of sensory overload escaping his mouth that only added to the growing amount of pitches. 

Dr. G’s brow furrowed, and he adjusted his tie.

It felt like Benrey snapped back to reality, when he hadn’t even realized he’d left. However, things were different... he wasn’t in a vent anymore, but instead near a window in the complex, and the skeleton was gone. 

“dude... did you-“ Benrey started, but he was quickly silenced by Dr. G glancing down at him.

“Like I said... Mr. Ben-rey. I am... not the type to need weapons... Not when something... im-portant is at stake.” 

“yeah. well, um. thanks. i guess.” He looked away.

“I need you to be in top shape... of course. That is... the only way you can finish this.”

Benrey leaned against the wall quietly, exhaling quietly.

“Looks to me like we should take a rest here, gentlemen!” Dr. Coomer said.

Benrey silently thanked him for saying what he himself was too tired to say.

Who knew being a hero was so draining?

“yeah... yeah-“

Benrey’s eyes were drawn to the ceiling thanks to a light, droning tone that cast a light into the silo. 

The skeleton.

“dude... please don’t yell at me. i wanna sleeeeeep.” 

“come sleep.”

“sleepy skelly.”

The skeleton hopped down, landing far too close to Benrey.

Why was that so familiar?

“okay, um... g’night... awooga... awoooooooga...” Benrey laughed hoarsely, eyes fluttering shut as his head landed on the skeleton’s shoulder bones, succumbing to sleep. 

“Goodnight, Benrey!” Bubby said.

(Now the player can get to sleep too.)

(Good god, was it midnight already?)

(Curse VR. Curse it so much.)

(Heh.)

(Awooga.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> due to popular demand SHE IS A MULTI CHAPTER FIC NOW!! thank you so much to everyone who commented such nice things- i wouldn’t know what to say besides “thank you” but i really appreciate everyone who took the time to tell me they love my fic! i’m having a lot of fun with the characterization of each swap, and the comedy- but that’s a given because comedy is kinda my main squeeze lol. anyways, that was act 1 for you!!


	3. Act 2: Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You’re not supposed to be in here.

If Benrey didn’t know better, he’d say the scene of three old men and a skeleton staring at him from worm’s-eye view belonged directly in a horror movie about, like, the terrors of age or something. 

He did know better, though, and he know these men.

“Benrey?” Dr. Coomer said quietly, jostling him gently by the shoulder. “Are you awake?” 

“yup.” Benrey smacked his lips once or twice, pointing to the skeleton. “uhh. is that real? or am i just tripping.”

“The wall? Of course it’s real, Benrey. Jeez,” Bubby said. “Not a great first question to ask.” 

Benrey met eyes with the skeleton’s empty sockets, and then looked over at Dr. G, who was pointedly silent. 

Maybe he was silent because the skeleton wasn’t real.

Maybe he was silent because it was.

Who fucking knew with this guy. 

“new question. how the fuck we get here??”

Coomer puffed out his chest with confidence. “We rolled you like a barrel!” 

“It wasn’t easy, Benrey,” Bubby added. 

“ok cool. so if i get a concussion i know who to blame.”

“Correct!” 

Benrey yawned, getting up and stretching a little. Then, he wound up his crowbar like a baseball bat, and smacked the barrier currently keeping them from their goal.

“ohhhhh. home run. pooh baseball... christopher robin. nobody can stop me nowwwww,” Benrey whooped, demolishing the barricade to nothing with the help of Bubby and Coomer.

“You know what they say! If you can’t find any doors, bust a wall open!” Bubby exclaimed gleefully. 

“-Look out, Benrey! Aliens!” he continued, and ran and them with a crowbar. 

“ugh, and we were having such a good DAY too. bummer,” Benrey groaned, wielding a crowbar of his own as he went back-to-back with Bubby. They thrashed crabs down one by one until the floor was covered with a wonderful array of crab carcasses.

BONK.

“yo, what gives, man?” Benrey said. He turned around to face Bubby, who had conked him on the head.

“Whoops! My bad,” Bubby said sheepishly, hiding his hands behind his back as if that helped the situation. 

What a great way to set the mood. 

The day’s events were pretty samey to Benrey- Tools, Bubby blowing things up again, finding an elevator- He could have sworn Dr. G was intentionally pushing that button way too fast. Luckily, nobody was hurt.

“Benrey?” Bubby said.

“‘sup.”

“I feel normal.” 

“Benrey, look! A train!” Coomer hopped down onto the panel below, bouncing up and down as he showed his friends the train. “Trains are my life!”

“Benrey, pay close attention. They use these to get all AROUND the science,” Bubby said, a scholarly air creeping into his voice. 

“can’t we just walk.”

“Nope!” They both grinned. 

Benrey sighed. This was going to go... well. 

Coomer took the lead, and the train lurched to life as it began chug-a-lugging down the tracks. 

(It was funny as hell seeing the scientist models run in place, that’s for sure.)

“oh shit. dog,” Benrey said flatly, loading his gun. It was time to take out more peeper puppies- and what’s harder, it’s on a moving tram, too! Still, after many, many failed shots, Benrey got the job done. 

He glanced behind him to see something flying off.

“uh.”

“yo...”

“we lost dr. g.”

“I CAN’T STOP, BENREY!” Coomer yelled, the train going even faster still.

“WELL, YOU FUCKING BETTER! THERE’S A STOPPER!” Bubby yelled back. He pointed to the stopper in the distance, and both he and Coomer ducked.

“huh-?”

Poor Benrey.

Today really wasn’t his day.

He got nailed straight in the stomach by the stopper, skidding on the ground and bouncing a few times, before landing face-down.

“yeah, ouch.”

He got up, watching the tram move without him... then made a surprised squeak when someone lifted him by the HEV suit’s neckpiece like someone would lift the scruff of a cat. 

“Hello again, Mr. Ben-rey...” Dr. G said somewhat condescendingly. 

“yo.”

The scientist and Benrey warped up to the team’s stopping place, only to see Bubby trudging around the tram in a circle.

“Benrey, this is terrible. They’ve got green sludge here. And Dr. Coomer is terribly allergic!” 

“well don’t worry. we’re not gonna get gooped,” Benrey said matter-of-factly. He dropped down below into a large pipe, feeling it out. Good. No leaks. 

“Good. I didn’t sign up for a gooping,” Bubby remarked.

So in they went, just a couple of guys trudging through a pipe.

It was curious, though- Dr. G’s eyes glowed in the dark. Those brilliant cyan eyes were only more pronounced when it was the most visible thing in the room. 

After a while of glancing over at Dr. G and hoping he doesn’t notice, the pipe ended, and Coomer was relieved that there wasn’t a drop of green slime on him. 

“Careful now, Benrey! You don’t want to get grabbed by the ghoulies!” he said, hopping out of the pipe before him. 

“oh. more ropes. yo, bubby, c’mere. gotta teach you something. marios early years,” Benrey muttered, beckoning Bubby over.

“What is it, Benrey?” Bubby asked, leaning forward expectantly.

“see that up there?”

“Yes. Do I look like I’m blind?”

“a bit, yeah.

“Tch!”

“anyways. that’s not a rope. you get me, right? no rope?”

“Of course I know that! Don’t be a dumbass! Stop patronizing me! Just because I want to h-h-h-“ Bubby stepped backwards, grabbing his head. Parts of his body became blurry, and he was phasing in and out, knocked back and forth by glitchy rectangles. The air around him started producing a low whine of noise. 

“...you good, man?”

“Because I want to help- to HEL-“  
Bubby’s eyes snapped back to staring at Benrey, a sharp grin filling his face. The hostile red glow of the lighting only made Bubby’s forced reset even more uncomfortable to witness. “Hello, Benrey!” 

Benrey shrunk back, clearing his throat. 

(It’s just a game.)

(He’s just an NPC.)

“hi.”

Benrey’s eyes gravitated towards the skeleton that was perched near the edge of his vision. That, at least, wasn’t-

Well, a skeleton in Half-Life is still a creepypasta moment, but it was like, a BAD creepypasta moment. So it’s fine.

He took aim and fired at the skeleton. 

“Benrey! You knucklehead, you, what ARE you doing? It’s important to conserve ammo, you know!” Bubby scolded. 

“i know. i know. sorry.” He fired off another round. “sorry sorry sorry sorry.” 

Benrey stepped away closer to the pool of green slime, studying it.

“y’know. uh.”

“i’m pretty sure you guys need hev suits. like me. how’re we hangin’?” 

“Oh, it’s just brain cancer. You can live with that,” Bubby said.

“...I don’t think you can live with that,” Dr. Coomer corrected bashfully. 

Benrey made his way further into the plant, letting the green lighting change his view of the atmosphere.

“hey. squee-g. this place seems kinda fucked. is this allowed?” He said, turning to look at Dr. G.

“It‘s... DOCTOR G. And yes, Mr. Ben-rey, this is all... to code. The United States approves of... Black Mesa’s activities.” 

“neat.”

They pressed forward, Bubby taking the lead. “Benrey! Watch me make this jump!”

That was the first time Bubby failed a jump and plummeted into green slime.

But it would certainly not be the last. 

“He’ll be fine,” Coomer said bluntly.

Bubby did eventually make it back to the group- and his absence reminded him a bit of Gordon. Where was that guy, anyways? Did they kill him off for real?

He was thrown out of it by Bubby literally getting thrown across the room.

Someone touched explosives again. 

Benrey sidestepped the KOed Bubby, and took his time stepping outside to see- what else?- more green sludge.

“ok. so. hypothetically. what would one place need this much sludge for,” Benrey asked, scooting closer to Dr. G.

Dr. G chuckled. “Oh, Mr... Ben-rey... Really, I thought a man of your... cal-iber would know that, this is no mere... sludge.”

“radioactive sludge?”

“...I suppose. But its purpose is... in the past now, as you’ll find that... many of the scientists at the moment are... pre-occupied.”

“with being dead?”

“Yes, with- with being dead.”

Bubby put a hand around both Dr. G and Benrey. “You know what this situation calls for? A GODDAMN ROPE!” 

“yeah. we got uh, got no ropes though,” Benrey said, pushing Bubby aside slightly.

The goddamn skeleton was back. 

It was far away, though, so it was okay, right?

NEVERMIND IT JUST SHOT AT HIM. JESUS. 

“Is... something the problem, Mr. Ben-rey?” Dr. G asked firmly.

“nooope. just got... fleas,” he grunted, moving past both of them.

It looked like the sludge was over with (for now), and the halls they roamed went back to feeling mechanical and industrial. Browns, greys, better than sewage greens, he supposed. 

Benrey crouched to interact with an obvious lore-dump NPC. Bubby crouched as well. He was about to ask what Bubby was doing, but then Bubby socked the man in the face with a crowbar.

“Bubby!” Dr. Coomer said, sounding more like a disappointed parent than anything. “That was uncalled for!”

“Uncall THIS!” Bubby shouted, preparing to knock Coomer with the crowbar.

“Ah! Playing dirty, you fiend? Put up your dukes or no cigar!” Coomer hopped back and forth, taking on a classic boxing stance. 

“That’s it, fucker! You’re going down!” He leapt at Coomer, only to get parried magnificently and slammed onto the floor.

“And that’s how it’s done, Benrey,” Coomer said, dusting off his hands. 

“violence,” Benrey said bluntly. 

The rest moved on, stepping over Bubby’s knocked-out body. The hallways eventually led to an industrial-looking door. Benrey wondered if this was the place that plot-dump was supposed to be for.

His question was answered immediately when what looked like a gigantic green claw-monster skewered a scientist like chicken on a barbecue. 

“dr guidance. get over here,” Benrey whispered. 

Dr. G crossly adjusted his tie, giving Benrey a once-over. 

“Try not to get quite so... com-fortable, Mr. Ben-rey... You must remember I possess quite a lot more... authority than-“

“mheeeh mleh mleh blah. tell me how we beat this guy,” Benrey mocked. He tugged at Dr. G’s labcoat and pointed to the creature, almost like a kid at a candy store. 

“Hypothetically, one would need to... find some power, in order to test fire this... machine,” Dr. G mumbled, stroking his chin. He looked like he was waiting for someone to chime in.

“Benrey, we have no power! Benrey, we have no fuel! Benreyyyy! We have no OXY!” Coomer yelled, pressing his face up to the control panel. 

“Drama queen,” Bubby huffed. 

Benrey squeezed by into the hallway, already feeling adrenaline take hold. What made matters worse was Bubby’s cheerful declaration of there being ropes. Benrey wasn’t as quick to the draw as he had hoped, and Bubby had been taken by the ‘rope’. He groaned, shooting it from below. Luckily, that worked, and Bubby went soaring free on top of a platform.

“Look, Benrey! The rope helped me up! I’m a goddamn genius!” Bubby declared triumphantly.

“BBBBBBBBBBB.” Benrey clipped his mic again.

He climbed the ladder like a normal person and skirted further into the hallway, only to see that giant claw-monster again. The icing on the cake was a guard was already there shooting at it!

“aw hell yeah man. BALLS OF STEEL,” Benrey shouted, cupping his hands around his mouth like a megaphone to cheer the guard on.

That ended quickly when he got shot and fell to his death.

Benrey turned around, looking for the culprit, and all 3 of his companions were looking away innocently.

“nobody gonna own up to that? fail. anyways. we gotta rush it, speedrun strats.”

“Rush it?” Coomer said curiously.

“RUSH IT?!” Bubby added.

“RACE!” Coomer and Bubby went off like a shot, leaving Benrey teetering off the edge. He grounded himself and took a leap, just barely making it to the other side.

“Nicely done... Mr. Ben-rey. You are a man that can certainly... keep his wits about him,” Dr. G complimented, gliding across the gap and landing gracefully on the platform. 

“hacks,” Benrey wheezed. 

Dr. G found that less amusing. 

Benrey headed in to where Bubby and Coomer were waiting, partially drowning out Coomer telling him about how fun their race was. It looked like the claw-monster was well out of sight... but not so much out of mind. 

Well, a little out of mind.

Benrey was busy having a cackle fit over Bubby tripping on the door and getting knocked out. 

“Aaaaaaaaaa~”

Benrey yelped, batting the skeleton away from Bubby. “stop, STOOOOP, he’s not dead yetttttt.”

Coomer and Dr. G looked at each other, then back at Benrey, who was wildly flapping at nothing while standing over Bubby. 

Odd. 

Benrey gave chase to the skeleton, and caught up with it near the end of the hall.

“yooooo... what do you want, man?”

The skeleton stared at him for a while, then it spun around wildly and made a whole mess of Sweet Voice.

Somehow, Benrey got the feeling Dr. G couldn’t translate that one. 

Defeated, Benrey trudged back to wherever he thought the science team was. 

“um... open sesame,” he muttered, knocking on the door once or twice. It seemed to vanish, lost to time...

Replaced by a smiling Dr. G.

“We’re all thrilled you made it back in... one piece, Mr. Ben-rey.” 

He supposed that was Dr. G’s way of saying ‘you’re welcome for the shortcut’.

“Benrey, look! You activated: the fuel! You activated: the OXY!” Coomer chirped, pointing to the control panel they had made their way back to.

(Jeez, Coomer’s starting to sound like Bubby.)

(Wouldn’t that be something? If Coomer was the tutorial NPC?)

(...Nah.)

Benrey was snapped out of his (and the player’s thoughts) by the fact he was apparently standing over a grate. 

Why was he standing over a grate?

“guys. i think we are...” He smacked his lips. “lost.” 

“Benrey, this is a grate,” Bubby said. 

Benrey looked up, where he was face to face with the skeleton.

“...can i ask you guys something?”

“Nope!” Coomer said happily from above.

“okay.”

He silently reached his hand out to touch the skeleton’s face, trying his best to feel whether it was real or not. He slowly retracted his hand, raising his pistol instead.

The shot missed. 

“Benrey! It’s important to conserve ammo! Don’t you remember?” Bubby scolded him. 

Bubby’s warning was, of course, drowned out by the melodic thrumming of the Sweet Voice, which was in turn drowned out by a new voice.

*BEEEEEEEP*

BEN. REY. YOU. ARE. WANTED. FOR. CREDENTIALS. INSPECTION. 

“you kidding me man? i GOT my PASSPORT,” Benrey said, to nobody in particular.

“Oh, dear. That’s not good,” Bubby muttered. 

“Well, maybe you did something wrong and you just didn’t realize!” Coomer suggested.

“no. i’d know. if i wanna do stuff wrong i do it wrong,” Benrey replied, dusting his finger under his nose mischievously. 

“But what if... you did...? In the eyes of... someone else... you may be nothing but.. a dirty crim-inal,” Dr. G pondered out loud.

The skeleton was uncomfortably close.

“Well, we’ll have to retrace our steps and figure out where you fucked up, Benrey,” Bubby said.

“stupid idea,” Benrey grunted.

Bubby pulled out a gun. “We’ll have to RETRACE our STEPS.”

Benrey pulled out one as well. “idea is STUPID.”

“...”

“...”

“Hello, Benrey! I want to go fire a rocket!” 

Benrey blinked once or twice in surprise. 

“Let’s get out of this grate so I can go fire a rocket!”

...But you didn’t see him complaining. 

“so we’re not gonna talk ‘bout that?” Benrey said, pointing back from where they came.

“Benrey, that’s a sewer,” Dr. Coomer replied. “I’m... not sure when you thought sewers were doors, but that’s not what that is.” 

“You’re a nasty little sewage boy, aren’t you, Benrey?” Bubby teased.

Benrey cackled, shoving him on the shoulder. “damn right!”

The next area was, to Benrey’s dismay, filled with more sludge. 

To make matters worse, Bubby was setting world records for ‘fastest fall into green sludge’.

Benrey huffed, prepared to have another few minutes without one of their party members, when he heard a disgusting SCHLORP sound echo throughout the facility.

A white beam shot up from the goop, and like a reborn angel, Bubby ascended majestically to the heavens.  
“BENREY! ROPES!”

He backflipped out of the rope’s grip, doing a Shadow the Hedgehog Spin Dash™️ and landing flat on his feet, glasses glinting with mischievous pride.

“You used it to help with a pit!” Coomer said, an impressed blush making its way across his face.

“Pretty cool, right?” Bubby struck a pose, and Coomer giggled like he was in preschool again. 

“can you two, like, knock it off- HUAWGH.”

Bubby got Benrey in the chest with a rope.

“Whoops. My bad.”

Okay. Benrey knew not to disrupt the grandpa’s flirting rituals now. 

He backed up quite a bit, wanting to get a running start. Bubby said something about ropes, but before he knew it, Benrey had taken off. He just barely landed- that seemed to be happening a lot these days- and had to fall into a tumble to break his fall. 

Unfortunately, what greeted him was a zombified scientist.

“NOSCOPE,” Benrey yelled, whipping out his gun in a flash and sniping the bastard.

“Fine shooting, Benrey!” Bubby noted.

“Yes, fine shooting!” Coomer was there too. 

Benrey snorted, kicking the corpse aside. “‘t was nice. i’m the best at this. ohhhhh.”

He entered the small transition area, and tried to move the door open... only for it to close in his face.

“yo who’s fucking with the doors, man? bad prank.”

Dr. Coomer folded his arms and frowned. “Well, you left Bubby behind!”

“You nearly left me behind, Gordon! You wouldn’t want THAT, would you?” Bubby yelled, tumbling in from the first door.

Benrey couldn’t tell if that was a threat or not. 

The door opened, and Bubby nearly leapfrogged over Benrey. “Benrey, look! BARRELS!” 

“Careful, Bubby! Those are explosive!” Coomer cried out, and they both ran to the bridge and immediately blew it up.

“fail.”

Dr. G gently moved Benrey aside, gliding from one end of the gap to the other and turning to look at him expectantly.

“not even gonna help a bro out? kinda fail too.” Benrey blew some hair out of his face and got to work tightroping across the gap, while ignoring whatever kind of sludge-wrestling Bubby and Coomer were up to down there. 

Eventually, they stopped fucking around and swung back up with the ‘ropes’, which was good.

“didn’t you say you were allergic to green slime?” Benrey asked, watching as Coomer tried to match his pace.

“Yes! I brought a Black Mesa Epi-Pen with me though!” He said happily, holding it up.

“i thought that shit was weak. weaksauce. think you’re gonna die?” 

“Don’t be stupid, Benrey,” Bubby chimed in. “OUR Epi-Pen has enough power to nuke a country.”

“TWO countries!” Coomer corrected. 

“sweet.”

Everything felt boring again, and Benrey tried his best to zone out the annoying calls of the peeper puppies- hell, they were almost as bad as the Sweet Vent Incident. Luckily, that section wasn’t too long, and he could go back to dealing with his regular problems-

Trying to save some idiot scientists from ropes. 

Well, at least Bubby helped out a bit too. 

“Alright, Benrey, we’ve taken care of those ropes. Now it’s time to reactivate the lights!” Bubby gave Benrey an enthusiastic nod, and Benrey flipped the switch.

Groaning, the elevator came to life, and its lights cast everything in a sinister, yellow glow. It was enough to set anyone on edge, and even Benrey instinctively backed up.

...No, perhaps it was because there, on the elevator, was none other than Gordon Freeman. His eyes shone green under the deep shadow of his helmet, reflecting an unusual amount of light that highlighted that stern look on his face even more. 

“What do you think you’re doing down here?” 

“i’m.”  
  
Benrey stopped. 

“progressing.”

“Progressing? You’re TRESPASSING, that’s what you’re doing. This facility is for BLACK MESA STAFF. Not SUSPICIOUS PARTIES,” Gordon said, poking Benrey’s chest as he enunciated every word. 

Benrey looked down at Gordon’s finger, then back up at him.

“did you just hit me?”

“I DID! I DID HIT YOU! BECAUSE I’M SICK OF YOU!”

Benrey smirked, stifling a laugh. “sounds like what i should be saying to you.”

Gordon growled, putting a hand to his helmet. His hair seemed to curl around his shoulder, almost like it was moving on its own-

*BEEEEEEEEP*

BEN. REY. YOU. ARE. WANTED. FOR. CREDENTIALS. INSPECTION. 

“You hear that?” Gordon said with a confident grin on his face. “They KNOW you’re here.”

“uh-huh.”

“You’re not supposed to be in here.”

“well, maybe could you leave me alone about it?”

Gordon’s voice raised 3 tones in volume. “What? This is my JOB! What do you want me to DO about it, just lay down and DIE?!”

“yeah sure.”

“No. I’m not resting, and I’m NOT giving up until I make sure the security breach is STOPPED,” Gordon said, leaning in closer to Benrey. “Which means I’m going to have to follow you.”

“yeah that’s fine.” 

Gordon stepped forward.  
Benrey stepped back.

Two steps forward.  
Three steps back.

Four steps f-

Gordon backed Benrey into the corner of the elevator.

“...Gentlemen, is there an issue? May we get on now?” Coomer piped up from the loading zone.

“Please... get on, sirs. I’ll make sure this one doesn’t do anything STUPID,” Gordon said, not breaking eye contact with Benrey. Those eyes... they bore right into him.

BEN. REY. YOU. ARE. WANTED. IMMEDIATELY.

Benrey’s breaths hitched in his throat, sweat dripped down his forehead- Gordon watched it in fascination. He pressed his hand close to Benrey’s heart, feeling it speed up.

BU-BUMP. 

BU-BUMP.

BU-BUMP.

Gordon blinked once or twice, hearing the beat in his head. He closed his eyes, willing himself to do this new, human sensation as well- to sweat-

“dude.”

“are we about to kiss right now?”

Gordon’s eyes shot open and he glared at Benrey. “Wh-NO!”

“we could. you and me. right now-“

The elevator screeched to a halt.

“Uh-oh,” Coomer muttered.

“Welp! Everyone for themselves!” He shouted, diving off the side and hitching onto a ladder. 

“okay. ready to make this jump, gaydon?” Benrey turned to look at the guard.

“Gordon,” he said sternly. 

Benrey tried to do a running start as usual, but fucked it up completely, and both him and Gordon went tumbling into the sludge with a splash. 

Gordon finally made it onto the ladder, panting, only to slip and fall again. Benrey chuckled, using his opportunity to scurry back up to land like a jungle animal. 

Gordon, sopping wet, came after. They emerged in the generator room, catching the last of a conversation the science team was having with another NPC.

“Benrey, this clone of mine is a lazy layabout!” Coomer said sternly, holding a gun near his head. 

“He is?” Gordon said, and Benrey could have sworn he saw Gordon’s face shadow darken slightly. Gordon cocked his gun- what was it he had called it the other day, HIS passport? “I’ll take care of this. As a security guard, it’s my job to-“

Benrey put a hand on his chest. “nah, man, it’s okay. he’s my friend. even if he owes me three dollars.” 

BANG.

Benrey looked over at Gordon in surprise, only to find Gordon gave him the same befuddled look.

“He owed ME five!” Coomer said cheerfully. “My power GROWS, Benrey!” 

The gang made their way to the next puzzle, and-

Oh, dear God. This looks like hell.

Benrey couldn’t hide the visible disgust in his face when he saw how quickly those platforms went around and around, and how easily one of the other members of the science team could sabotage his puzzle-solving.

“Why do you look like that?” 

Benrey flinched- Gordon was leaning over and had said that right in his ear!

“You’re jumpy. Did you steal something from here? I should have known. Spit it out!” 

“it’s been like. a minute. calm down.”

“You want me to calm down? You want ME to calm down? GAAAAH! YOU-!” 

“AAAAAAAAAAAAA~” 

“yo, g... what did gordos just do to me?” Benrey said, looking back at Dr. G.

Dr. G glanced up from his novel, studying the colours. “No, Mr. Ben-rey... Mr. Freeman just appears to be having some... trouble, with his emotions.”

Gordon blushed in embarrassment, his hair’s volume wilting like a flower. 

“HAAAAA HA HA. feelsman stayed up past his naptime now he’s caaaaaanky- hello?”

He heard that gross, GROSS slopping noise again. Benrey looked up quietly, and, er... There was Bubby.

Over his head.

“Hello, Benrey!”

“Alright, you three, enough playing. Benrey, get on the lift, why don’t you?” Coomer offered, as Bubby reluctantly obliged and got off Benrey’s head.

Benrey got on the lift, only for it to be halted immediately by Gordon pressing up against his back.

“gordos.”

“you can’t be here.”

“Funny. That’s what I should be saying to you, BENREY.”

“Er- No, Gordon, he means literally. The lift can’t function with two people on it!” Coomer piped up from behind.

Gordon whipped around, giving Coomer the death stare. “Oh, I see. You think you can cover for your little ‘friend’ so he can go off and steal the machinery from this lift. Well, TOUGH FUCKIN’ NOOGS! I’m NOT getting off this lift- AAAAAAAUGH!”

Suddenly and unceremoniously, Dr. G waved his hand, and Gordon got sent careening into the wall. 

“Oh, isn’t Dr. G such a big help?” Bubby said.

Benrey offered a silent thumbs up, and the lift zipped off faster than the speed of sound.

(...Well, that’s what it FEELS like in VR, anyways.) 

After that revolting roundabout, Benrey found himself near the top of the structure, where for some reason there was a scientist struggling there. 

Benrey bent down and started to listen to him, making muffled noises into the mic.

Gordon gasped. “CONSPIRATOR! I KNEW IT!” He pulled out a gun and shot the scientist in the head... only to miss.

“that’s, uh, one of our holograms,” Benrey said flatly. 

“What?-“

Gordon couldn’t finish that thought thanks to Bubby crowbaring him into next week... and down into the sludge he went. 

Bubby, acting like nothing happened, went down a bit further and triumphantly smacked a button. Coomer went to find the corresponding one, and gave it a good, hard smack. 

Two long wires started reaching out from the walls.

“Hey. Benrey. Watch this,” Coomer said with a mischievous wink. He ran onto the wire, and as soon as the generator activated, all of Coomer’s fluffy hair stood on its end- he looked like a dandelion.

“BBBBBBBBBBZLZZLLZBBBBT!” Coomer, er... ‘said’, and he tumbled back out of the electricity’s reach.

“hey man that’s a pretty good trick.” 

“Why, thank you!”

“Now, gentlemen, we better get a move on. Take out your ropes!” Bubby instructed, and Benrey smacked his lips a few times.

“uhhhh i don’t got... ropes.”

“You don’t...?” Bubby looked confused, but it vanished off his face quickly. “-Benrey, for five PlayCoins, we can help you through this area!”

“nah. flat broke, bro. i’ll take my chances,” Benrey replied, backflipping off the ledge. He made a brilliant splash in the sludge, emerging and cursing to himself. Why did he even think that would work?

Gordon soon swan-dived into the water after him, coming up for a breath of fresh air but stopping to look at Benrey’s pouty face.

“Are...” Gordon cleared his throat. “Are we not supposed to be down here?”

“yeah sorry we’re kinda fucked.” 

“BENREY!” Bubby shouted at him from above. “USE YOUR ROPE!”

“BBBBBBBBB,” Benrey yelled back, and anyone who had been with him long enough knew on a basic enough level that that meant ‘no rope’.

“Check again, Benrey!” Coomer yelled, and Benrey checked his right arm only to see a disgusting arm cannon of a barnacle.

“neat.”

He prepared to shoot it, and heard that disgusting splorching noise- which meant it worked.

And yet, somehow, everything felt too heavy again... Just like the boxes. Benrey looked down, and his suspicions were confirmed. Gordon had latched onto his leg and was giving him a determined stare.

“hey.”

The two of them went flying, nearly bowling into Bubby and Coomer. That left all four of them (save for Dr. G, who was the smartest one here) in a tangled heap, most of them giggling and Gordon trying to collect himself. 

“LET ME OUT, BENREY!!”

“noooo haha. join the cuddle pile.”

“It’s fruitless, Gordon! We’ve got you right where we want you!” Coomer chuckled, his big strong arms only getting the group more tangled in each other.

“Damn right!” Bubby added. 

Gordon couldn’t help but laugh, getting caught up in the moment of it all, but his laughter eventually subsided as he glanced over to Dr. G, who stared back at him... knowing exactly what he was. 

Gordon began to sing slowly, letting each orb reach Dr. G’s vision. 

Dr. G furrowed his brow, as Gordon’s hair began to coil around his shoulder, eyes flashing bright green.

 _Pink to black means watch your back_. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh my god you guys it’s so hard writing hlvrai retold when some of the jokes are super fast cutaways and writing transitions is HAAAAARD... but y’know, writing a roleswap isn’t just about telling hlvrai shot for shot. like for example, some scientists don’t like getting reset, and gordon never had the fucking gman as a companion.... is what it is. i missed writing gordon so bad so when he came back i was like YAY
> 
> once again thank you so much to everyone who reads and comments here!! you guys give me the oomph to keep it going


	4. Act 2: Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That’s gonna be tonight’s running gag. Wikipedia.

“Does anyone know how I died?” Coomer asked suddenly, prodding the body of one of his clones. 

“nope,” Benrey said, popping the P.   
“why you got so much of these lyin’ around anyways?”

“What, clones? Why, they make them down here in Black Mesa!” Coomer explained. 

“yeah but i wanna know where though? tell benrey? tell benrey now?”

He scooted closer and closer to the doctor, but was pulled back by Bubby, who grabbed him close.

_“They’re in Biological Research, Benrey! I have to whisper or else he’ll kick our ass!”_

_“oh that sucks_ ,” Benrey whispered back, moving into the hall.

 _“Benrey, look. The water is electric,”_ Bubby whispered, pointing at a body of water up ahead. It certainly was electric- even a peeper puppy couldn’t take the heat. 

Which confused Benrey very much when Gordon walked right into it and then fell over. 

“WHY ARE WE WHISPERING, GENTLEMEN?” Coomer yelled, popping up in between the two of them. 

Benrey took that as a sign to get moving.

He roped over Gordon’s epic wipeout, making sure Bubby and Coomer followed suit- Electrified water wasn’t good for anyone. Eventually, Dr. G glided over the water, and Gordon got up as well, shaking the excess electricity off him like a wet dog. 

Benrey entered the next room, and boy, was it a sight for sore eyes. The claw monster hadn’t stopped for a second, even after their long, LOOOONG, trek to start the generator. It wouldn’t be moving for much longer, though...

Benrey smirked, taking out a camera.

“yo, coomer. do that thang,” he commanded, and Coomer flipped the test fire switch. 

Benrey took a commemorative photo of the explosion.

“What are-“

CLICK!

“What are you doing?!” Gordon demanded. 

CLICK!

“this is horrible,” Benrey said quietly. “he on fire.” 

Gordon sighed, stepping in front of Benrey. “This is NO TIME FOR-“

CLICK! 

Gordon stood there, blinking.

“what. gordon darkman never seen a camera before?”

Gordon shook his head, rubbing his eyes and muttering under his breath. “Of course I’ve seen a cam-era before, dumbass. Put that thing away. You’re trying to BLIND me!” 

“nah man.”

Gordon slapped the camera out of his hand with a grunt.

“rude.”

Now that the claw-monster had been dealt with, the way was clear for the science team to proceed. What lay up ahead for them was an exciting dip into water, which meant Benrey got to do his favourite thing in the whole, wide world.

“BBBBBBBBBB.” 

“BBBBBBBBBBBB!” Bubby joined in enthusiastically. 

Benrey heaved himself up through an opening, letting his HEV suit drip. It was waterproof, that was for sure, but that didn’t stop it from feeling heavy. Something else felt like it was pressing up against his leg, though. Something cold... leaking something warm.

Oh.

A body. 

Benrey kicked it once or twice, confirming it was dead. He looked up, only to bump his forehead against Gordon’s helmet.

“ow.”

“What the fuck did you do? Why did you kill him?!” Gordon shouted, leaning further into Benrey’s personal space. At this point, his helmet was gonna leave a mark. 

“no,” Benrey said bluntly. He stared right back at Gordon, dead-eyed, as Gordon’s foot was tapping erratically, waiting for him to flinch, or move, or- or SOMETHING.

Benrey blew a puff of air into Gordon’s face and he jerked back, swearing under his breath.

“hey. here’s an idea. maybe YOU did this. i think you’re gonna get in trouble,” Benrey continued.

“What?- NO! I don’t GET in trouble! I’m doing my job!” Gordon yelled, rubbing his eyes.

Benrey sucked in some air sharply, darting his eyes to the side. Doubtful.

“I’m good at my job. Gordon Freeman is good at his job,” Gordon said, tugging at his hair as he went back into his own neurotic little madness mantra.

“gordon freeman is BAAAD at his job,” Benrey said with a chuckle. “he’s gon’ get FIREDDDD.”

“hey,” Benrey turned around to the other, non-dead guard. “you think he’s gon’ get fired?”

“I-“ The guard was interrupted by the deafening shot of a gun. Benrey’s eyes instinctively moved to the sound, and there he saw Gordon, wielding the weapon and standing there.

“why’d you do that.”

“...” This time, Gordon was the speechless one. His helmet fell a bit down his face, and he looked away. “Symmetry.” 

“I think that’s a good sign to get going,” Coomer butted in.

“Yes! You might be next, Benrey!” Bubby added, which totally didn’t weird Benrey out at all.

Benrey hopped in the water, but soon found that he was lost. No matter where he tried to swim to, it all came up as wall. He could feel his legs getting tired... and a soft buzzing sounded in his ear. Benrey blinked once or twice, letting out a weak noise...

When he blinked again, he was above water. He looked at Dr. G for an explanation, but his companion merely glanced back. It wasn’t his work that time.

“whuh... whuhappen....” Benrey said, coughing.

“I do believe you burnt a PlayCoin, Benrey!” Coomer said. He was sitting criss-cross on the industrial floor, apparently unaffected by that hiccup. 

“Nice purchase, Benrey!” Bubby started happily. “You have- TWO- PlayCoins left!”

“mm. what happens when i hit zero-“

Bubby yanked Benrey by the HEV suit’s neck piece, glasses shining. “You DON’T want to hit zero.”

“yessir,” Benrey croaked quietly. He slapped Bubby’s arm a few times to get him to let go, and he reluctantly obliged. 

“Benrey, I can invest one PlayCoin into the PlayCoin bank and you’ll gain INTEREST,” Bubby continued.

“That’ll pay dividends in the sequel, Benrey!” Coomer added from behind. 

“noooo. no sequel. the only thing i want to be paid back in the sequel is a BEER.” 

“Getting a little ahead of ourselves, are we not...? Mr. Ben-rey?” Dr. G said, cutting into Benrey’s groaning. 

(Whoops.)

(Did that count as spoilers?)

“nevermind. let’s just go in this bigass pipe,” Benrey said, dropping backwards into the pipe as he hung there for a bit like a vampire.

He was surprised to see Gordon join him.

“So what is this?” He asked.

“y’know.” 

Gordon blinked once or twice.

“hey why isn’t your helmet falling?” 

Gordon inhaled sharply, dropping down onto the inside of the pipe. Benrey fell soon after, only to be greeted by Coomer.

“Benrey!” 

“yo.”

“Hole!”

Dr. Coomer pointed at the hole with a big smile. 

“...yeah. hole.”

Benrey started to walk forward, judging the distance between him and the hole.

“Hole!”

“yahhh, coomer, i see it.”

“Hole, Benrey!”

“i seeeee.”

“Benrey! Hole!”

“COOMER.”

“Stop LOITERING!” Gordon shouted from behind Coomer.

“yeah well you’re loitering too.”

“I’m not!”

Benrey snorted. He turned back around, and with a running start, leapt the hole. 

“easy mode. where’s my achievement,” he said, turning backwards to face the group casually.

“Hole!” Coomer continued, and Benrey’s confident smirk dropped.

“dude the hole’s done. no hole.”

“HOLE, Benrey! Hole!”

“calm down.”

“HOLE!”

“gordon calm him down.”

“No! He’s fine!” Gordon whined, crossing his arms. 

Benrey scoffed and went ahead.

“Hole,” Coomer quietly said one last time.

Then the pipe broke. 

“Benrey, you idiot! There’s a big hole!” Bubby shouted from above, the rest of the science team peering down at him from the pipe.

“yeah.”   
Benrey smacked his lips.  
“thanks.”

He got up with a groan, cracking his back. He was gonna feel that in the morning. As Benrey swung his torso from side to side, he let his eyes take him on a journey in the room. There were quite a few boxes... one wasn’t closed quite correctly. He stepped closer, and breaking open the lid, he found a massive gun. He whistled and took it out, admiring the sheen.

“What’s that you’ve got there?” Coomer asked, hopping down to marvel at it as well.

“sick gun. even better than gordos’ i think.”

“It is pretty sick,” Coomer agreed.

“Woah woah woah. Hold the fuck up. Where’d you get this? Did you steal this?” Gordon spat. He lifted the gun up while Benrey was still holding it, leaving Benrey dangling in the air.

“found it.”

“You ‘found’ it,” Gordon said back, making air quotes. “Yeah. Likely story. I should have known you’d steal something like this! I can’t believe you!”

“but you’re the one who said i did. so you thought i would.”

“You did!”

“i didn’t. you just thought i did and i thought you’d think i did. which i didn’t. but i did do that but not that.”

Gordon shook his head, dropping the gun. “I did what you did what I...”

Cool! Benrey broke him.

“That doesn’t matter. You’re still a thief!”

Ahh, but such gifts can’t last forever. 

Benrey bounced up and down on the balls of his feet, tilting his head quizzically as Bubby and Coomer smashed some boxes.  
“so can i ask you something?”

“No.”

“ok i’m gonna do it anyway though. why’re they allowed to break and steal shit but i’m not?”

“Because they work here. They know what they’re doing. Look at you,” Gordon said, flicking Benrey’s nose with distaste. “You just LOOK like you’re up to no good. Always.”

“that’s mean. why you gotta be so mean all the time?”

“I’m not mean. I’m protecting everyone from you, because nobody knows why you’re here-“

Gordon silently flinched as Bubby threw a med kit at his head.

“but i know why i’m here.”

“Oh, enlighten me then. What’s SO important that a trespasser needs to be in here?”

“i’m here toooo escape black mesa.” 

“That makes no sense. You’re lying.”

“i think you make no sense.”

Benrey got hit in the head with a med kit. 

“Benrey, come here! Look what I did!” Coomer shouted, and it broke the strange, argumentative spell Benrey and the guard had on each other. He turned to look at Coomer, shuffling the med kits away from his feet.

“I made graffiti!”

“oh that’s nice. lemme help,” Benrey said, bending down to try and scratch some in with his gun next to the ‘Coomer is cool!’ written there. 

Unfortunately, before he could get there, a beam of white Sweet Voice conked him in the head, and he swore under his breath.

“what gives, man??”

“No need to translate, Dr. G! I have this one,” Gordon said confidently. “Black to white means DON’T WRITE.”

Benrey rolled his eyes, attempting again to graffiti the wall only to slap himself in the face.

“bummer.”

“c’mon man be cool. do graffiti with us.”

“Graffiti isn’t allowed down here,” Gordon said with a cough.

“whuh?”

Benrey looked back.

The graffiti was gone.

He sighed, getting up again and heading into the hall. He loaded his Gordon-approved gun and shot a guard in the face. 

“Why the fuck did- why did you do that?” Gordon said, gesturing to the guard’s body.

Benrey shrugged and ran forward. 

Coomer tapped his fingers together nervously. “Gentlemen, do you hear that strange creaking?”

“Sounds like hell,” Bubby said matter-of-factly. 

Benrey inched near the opening, back pressed up against the wall.

(Sounds like a tougher enemy.)

Benrey’s suspicions were quickly confirmed when a gigantic creature ran from one side to the other.

“Hmph... quite large, isn’t it...? One might think that it lacks its own... art-icle, on Wikipedia... The free encyclopedia,” Dr. G muttered, stroking his chin.

“what,” Benrey said flatly. Why did Dr. G just-?

“The free encyclopedia that ANYONE can edit?” Bubby said with a gasp.

(Jesus. It’s like Dr. G was TRYING to rile the NPCs up.)

However, Dr. G’s little plan failed, thanks to Benrey’s attention being taken up by Gordon walking directly into the fray.

The beast blew fire out of its arms, and Gordon scoffed. “Listen, man. You need to cut this shit out right now. I got friends here? And you’re really making me look bad. Stop.” 

“whuh...?” Benrey blinked once or twice. “sorry i missed that last part can you speak up?”

“THIS DOESN’T CONCERN YOU, BENREY!” Gordon growled. 

“Benrey, I have a great idea,” Coomer whispered. “LET’S RUN!” 

Benrey obliged and bolted in the middle of Gordon and the beast. He didn’t get out scott-free, of course, and was left ducking for cover as he patted the small fire on his head out.

The creature soon followed, which was bad news for them.

Gordon slid in front of Benrey, clearing his throat.

“Aaaaaaaaaa~”

Yes. Now was a GREAT time to be serenading it. Benrey continued shooting at it, only to slow down and glance over at Gordon...  
For some reason, his song actually seemed to be working.   
In a flash, the creature went up in flames, and left nothing but a pile of ash.

Bubby curiously went to poke one of the Sweet Voice orbs, and Gordon lowered his hand slowly.

“Don’t.” 

“I see your... ‘Song of Death’ is as ssstrong as ever... Mr. Freeman,” Dr. G said, adjusting his tie idly.

Gordon beamed proudly.

“yeah man. your voice is beautiful.”

Gordon immediately hid his blushing face.

“What’s wrong with him?” Bubby asked haughtily.

“I think he might have come down with the case of The Crumbles,” Coomer replied.

“The Crumbles? I read about that on Wikipedia! The free online encyclopedia!” Bubby repeated excitedly.

“yo. this isn’t a sponsored stream. stop with that,” Benrey grumbled, putting a hand over Bubby’s mouth. 

“Mmmph mph mph!” Bubby continued, muffled by Benrey.

“whuh?”

Bubby bit down on his hand HARD.

“gross. you’re gross,” Benrey sulked. He stuck a finger in his mouth, sucking the pain away.

“As I was SAYING. We better get a move on!” Bubby said, his chipper demeanour masking his annoyance.   
  
Benrey headed out into the hallway, only to see Coomer sitting lazily on a chair.

“Benrey, look! We found a chair!”

“not a gamer chair though. i’m allergic,” Benrey mumbled, folding his arms.

Bubby smiles. “Oh, but all chairs are good! A chair is a raised surface-“

For the sake of your sanity and Benrey’s, he tuned Bubby’s rambling out until he was done.

Even if that was a long, LONG time to wait. 

“did you catch that?” Benrey said to Dr. G.

“...From Wikipedia,” the doctor clarified.

“weird.”

They continued, after Coomer had smashed the chair into pieces, into a large-looking room with a train terminal.

“oh boy. this is gonna get uglyyyy,” Benrey said, sucking some air in through his teeth. 

“I’ve always hated trains,” Dr. G said with a sigh. 

“it’s ok. watch,” Benrey said, patting Dr. G on the shoulder, then proceeding to walk right past the trains.

“Benrey, won’t walking on the rails hurt?” Coomer asked, puzzled.

“‘s fine. we can live with that.” 

Coomer and Bubby exchanged a look, and Coomer made tiny grabby hands. Bubby sighed, rolling his eyes and scooping Coomer up, carrying him across the rails. 

Eventually, Benrey came to a stop, thanks to the big, red stopper. The guard was a telltale sign too, of course.

Whatever the guard said, he had a bit of a mumble, and when Benrey leaned closer to try and hear him, his ear bumped into a security vest.

Gordon’s.

“Hey.”

“...yo.”

“Don’t listen to this guy. He’s clearly crazy.” 

“huh? whuh?”

“I’m the only trustworthy guard here. This guy doesn’t know what he’s doing.” 

“no i think you’re- i think he’s fine. lemme see,” Benrey grunted, trying to shove Gordon out of the way. “look. he’s lifting the stopper for us.” 

...And the guard pressed the lever, only for it to re-lower the stopper.

“This guy’s a maniac. Even worse than you. I’ll deal with this,” Gordon sneered, pulling out his gun. He shot him, quick as a whip, and spun the gun confidently. 

Benrey stepped away from him. 

“Aaaaaaaaaa~” 

Okay, Gordon was now giving mouth-to-mouth to the guard he just killed or something.

“Benrey, I’m uncomfortable,” Bubby said quietly.

Benrey nodded. 

The rails only led to- what else- more rails! Benrey groaned, rubbing his temples, but then looked at the science team with a mischievous grin.

“yo.”

“who wanna RACE?”

Dr. G looked at him like a disappointed parent.

Unfortunately, the rest of the team took it hook, line, and sinker- Including Gordon, who had decided he needed to prevent people from ‘running in the halls’. 

“COME BACK HERE, FUCKER!” Gordon yelled, sprinting to keep up with Benrey.

“Yes! Stop right there! I won’t let you beat my World Record!” Bubby cried, trying his best to keep speed while he was carrying Coomer. 

Benrey came to a halt around the corner, panting and pumping his fist. He had won! And they were applauding for him!

...No, wait, only one person was applauding.

Very, very, slowly.

Damn Dr. G to hell.

They went on their way, without much stress. Bubby DID set off a few explosions and turrets, but that was run of the mill for the group at this point. They found an ugly alien corpse, which Gordon unsuccessfully tried to use a healing beam on.

The fun only REALLY began when they found more soldiers.

“commence operation boot boy,” Benrey said with a smirk. 

The science team charged valiantly into battle, as a bunch of soldiers swept into the fray.

“You want boots so bad, motherfucker? Well come GET SOME!” Bubby shouted, roundhouse kicking one of them in the face.

Benrey ran into an office, where he saw one of the soldiers sitting improperly on a chair, so the chair’s back was pressed against his chest. He seemed far too casual for the events unfolding. 

Suspicious.

“Hey, fucker- what?” Of course, Gordon RUINED his scoping-out, but what happened was perhaps more interesting. Gordon had ran into the man and his chair, only for him to flop on his side gently. 

“Hey, that’s pretty rude, you know,” a muffled voice said, frowning in Gordon’s direction.

“we need you to get up please,” Benrey said, pointing his gun at the man.

“No thank you.”

“no i think- i think yes thank you.”

“No, I don’t really do the ‘taking orders’ thing. So down here is fine.”

“c’mon,” Benrey said, nudging the chair gently with his foot.

The chair then shattered into glass.

...

...

“Benrey?” Gordon asked quietly. Benrey was staring into space.

(HOLY SHIT.)

(THE PLAYER IS ON THE FLOOR LITERALLY DYING FROM LAUGHTER.)

(WHY?)

(WHY DID THAT HAPPEN??)

(Eventually, the player dragged themselves back on the gaming chair, still chuckling.)

“aaaand we’re BACK,” Benrey yelled into the mic.

“Back from where-?” Gordon asked, looking concerned.

The soldier rolled his eyes. “Get a room.” He took off.

“oh. that sucks.”

“What did he mean ‘get a room’??” Gordon said, scratching his head.

“oh he’s saying we should kiss. maybe we should kiss to bring him back. gordo want kiss?”

“NO!” Gordon yelled, pushing Benrey away and chasing after the soldier. 

He trudged back slowly, like a lost puppy.  
“...He got away.”

“...From life! HAHAHAHAHA!” Gordon laughed triumphantly, holding up the corpse of a soldier and pointing at it triumphantly.

“...gordon he’s white.”

“...Is he?” Gordon looked down. “Oh.” 

“‘s okay buddy. we’ll get ‘em next time,” Benrey said, tapping his knuckle on Gordon’s helmet. He continued down the hall, littered with corpses and bullet holes, until they got to a basement level. It looked like they had found the soldier. 

“Don’t step any closer, got that?” He said, leaning on a black box and drumming his fingers on it. “I’ve got ways to make sure you don’t.”

“Ha! I’m not afraid of you!” Coomer shouted, moving forward and aiming his gun.

Coomer got a smoke bomb thrown at his face.

“...Okay, well, still not afraid of you, but I’d prefer all my limbs intact. I get it.” He backed up. 

The soldier laughed, a breathy, dry, laugh that got corrupted by the gas mask. “Hey, you... over there. You’re the leader, right? C’mere. I wanna talk.”

Benrey sidestepped the others, wringing his hands together.

“yeah bro what’s up. you wanna play some... video games or somethin’? what’s your psn tag?”

The soldier laughed again, adjusting his backpack. “Oh, no, I can’t tell you that. But I can give you my name. Darnold. Master mixologist.. and resident bomb specialist of the US Military!”  
“...You understand what that means, don’t you?” 

“it means you play xbox?”

Darnold shook his head. “No... I think you and I both know that’s not what it means.”  
“I think you should have figured out by now... you’ve been sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.”

“yeah that’s kinda boring to talk about though.”

“I find it pretty interesting,” Darnold said, scratching at his neck and staring at Benrey intently. “It means I get to try out my new Smoke Potions on you.”

“bombs?”

“Smoke potions.” 

“yeah okay we’re done. GORDOOON. come shoot this dick,” Benrey yelled.

“Or... I could show you just how good my smoke potions are. Are you watching? Good,” Darnold said, flicking his wrist. Three small, black capsules appeared wedged beneath his fingers, and he threw them down, the area exploding in a burst of colourful smoke. When it cleared, he was gone.

“dammit. this is all grodon’s fault,” Benrey muttered, running down the tracks. 

The science team climbed up some stairs, all pushing and shoving to make their way past. 

Bubby was the one who made it up first, and a soldier immediately reacted by shooting him. Bubby grabbed his arm and slammed it down onto the ground, the soldier catching fire quickly.

“woahhh uh. bubby. you good?”

Bubby didn’t reply. He just stared at Benrey, an uncharacteristic amount of rage in his eyes. 

Which was soon interrupted. 

“Oh, hey, it’s you guys again!” Darnold said with a sensible chuckle, his gas mask muffling his speech.   
“Y’know, if I had to guess, I think you guys don’t know what you’re doing.”

“i think that’s stupid. look at how capable we are.” 

Bubby set his hand on fire.

“Yet this is, what, the second? Third? Oh, I’ve lost count. Point being, for a bunch of pests that keep evading our forces, I seem to be evading you quite a bit! Heh,” Darnold said, chuckling again. 

“Mr.... Darnold, we tire of this... charade,” Dr. G said with a yawn. “If you’d be so kind, as to... give Mr. Ben-rey here some... information, regarding the military...” 

“yeah. what he said.” 

“Alright, fine,” Darnold said, taking off his gas mask to speak better. His hair was frizzy, and still had some remnants of some of his bombs in there, but his eyes were brown and kind-looking, with a jolly smile.   
“So? What is it that you wanna know? Our hiding spots? Our reasoning? Our...” His eyes turned towards Dr. G, smirking. “Favourite sodas?”

Dr. G’s brow furrowed. “Are... you implying you’ve...”

“Yes. I am.”

Dr. G adjusted his tie, and for a moment, Benrey felt like time had... frozen, somehow. It was only a moment, though, and nobody had really moved... had they?

Dr. G took a step back, touching his face. “I... I see.”  
“In that case, I believe you should... go get some... sodas, to show us which is.... sssuperior, yes...?”

Darnold grinned. “I knew you’d be a team player. See? Even I can bend the rules once in a while.” He slipped his mask back on, and proceeded to book it.

“hey yo, that’s not cool, man, why’d you let him go?”

“He wouldn’t have given you any... information about the military, regardless. I trust you’ve heard of a... bluff?” Dr. G said dismissively.

(Great. Now the AI is keeping secrets.)

“oh ok. bluff. kinda rude of him.”

The group meandered down another hallway, and Benrey grunted unhappily.

“is this not, like, where we came from?”

“It’s where I came from, Benrey,” Bubby said with a grin.

“that’s not-“ Benrey shook his head. “ok.”

He climbed onto another train, and promptly slammed his head into it.

(The player hates On A Rail.)

(The player REALLY hates On A Rail.)

(The player is starting to wish they just played Black Mesa like a normal person would.) 

“Benrey, are you alright?” Coomer said nervously.

“BBBBBBBBBB.”

Dr. G walked over and flipped the switch for him, and the science team went off on their ride.

“You know, this is a bit like a hayride!” Coomer pointed out.

“Yes, a hayride with five times the danger!” Bubby agreed. 

The train ride was very, VERY difficult.   
By the end of it, Dr. G had to resort to slapping whichever old man had the urge to press the stop button. 

The train stopped, and finally, they were back on land. Benrey was relieved for that... but not so relieved to see that a familiar ‘friend’ had returned in Gordon’s absence. 

The fucking skeleton.

It lingered there, staring deep into Benrey’s soul, judging him for his sins...

Benrey pushed him down the ladder shaft.

“HA! niiiice.”

That was the last big obstacle before their second glorious return to the surface. Before they could go, however, Benrey had to brief the team on how a stealth mission worked. 

“so. we gotta go out there, stealth mode. got that?” He explained quickly. Bubby and Coomer just looked at him like he was speaking another language. 

“I believe... What Mr. Ben-rey means to say, is... we mussst be quiet. Quiet... like a corpse,” Dr. G clarified with a macabre smile.

“yup. on three. one. two.”

“BENREY, LOOK! WE MADE IT TO THE SURFACE!” Bubby yelled as loud as humanly possible. Benrey flinched, covering his now-ringing ears. He prayed the soldiers wouldn’t gut and kill him now that he was immobilized by the sound.

Benrey’s eyes slowly creaked open, only to see the night sky was lit up by pink and red Sweet Voice orbs. He peeked outside, only to see Gordon whispering to some of the soldiers as the light balls escaped his mouth. 

Gordon smirked, backing off, and the soldiers suddenly collapsed.

“hey g, um...”

“Pink to red, means... Er...” He squinted.

“Pink to red means ‘explode your head,’” Gordon clarified with a smile. 

“please don’t explode my head but what were you like. doing. with the soldiers,” Benrey asked quietly.

“What does it look like? Exploding their heads, obviously. You know..” Gordon said nonchalantly, eyes flicking back up to Benrey. “Because they don’t work here.”   
“You know, it was really nice out here.. really quiet. Then you showed up.”

“yeah but i don’t explode heads?”

“You’re not supposed to be out here.”

“i am though.”

Benrey smacked his lips, making sure he did this next thing before Gordon rammed into his personal bubble like a bull.

“science teeeam. we need to have a heehoo.”

“A shabang?” Coomer questioned.

“I think he meant we need to have a whipcrack,” Bubby added.

“we’re having a no-gordons meeting. now hurry uppp.”

The gang went to sit near a warehouse entrance, and Benrey pressed his suit against the wall, sighing. The cold concrete only just barely touched his neck, but it provided him some relief. He shut his eyes for a moment, taking in the sound of the fireflies. 

“so. ‘bout gordon.”

“Hello, Benrey!” Bubby greeted.

“no, not me, knucklehead. GORRRR-DONNNN. freeman.”

“Well, what about him, Benrey?” Coomer asked.

“he’s weird. and mean. i dunno why he follows us,” Benrey mumbled. 

“Mr. Ben-rey, I assure you... Mr. Freeman’s inclusion in our little... rag-tag group is nothing you need to... worry yourself over,” Dr. G spoke up.

“even if he, like, whispers with soldiers n’ shit?”

“Well, he did explode their heads after,” Bubby continued. 

“but stilllllll,” Benrey whined.

“It’s alright, Benrey! You can explode their heads next time.”

Benrey was about to protest when an egg fell flat on his face.

“rng fail.”

He wiped off the egg, dusting his hands together.

“so, like... you guys got any big dreams?”

Bubby smiled fondly, tilting his head up to look at the stars. “I would like to go to space... and leave this world behind.”

“coomer, what’s your-“

Gordon was being a creepy little mouth breather and looking around the corner.

“YO, FUCK OFF, BRO.”

Gordon shrank like a violet, quietly going back to where he came.

“That was a bit rude,” Coomer said with a frown.

“‘s fine. tell me about your dream.”

“Well...” Coomer tapped his chin. “Before Black Mesa, I was a boxer, you know! Only a rookie, but then my blasted ex-wife made me quit... I’d like to think I’m spry enough to rejoin the ring some day. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Benrey smiled, against his better judgement. “i think you’d be a great boxer, bro.” 

“how ‘bout you, g?”

Dr. G ran a finger through his hair, exhaling thoughtfully. “My... dream? Well, after this... debacle is over, I wish to... Go home. Get dinner. And... retire.” 

“like, go to bed?”

“No, Mr. Ben-rey, after this I wish to retire from...”

Coomer got up.

“...My current profession.”

Coomer waved at Gordon, who kicked a soccer ball in his direction.

“whuh?”

“Ah, you do not...” He chuckled. “You see, working at Black Mesa is not my... only job, nor is it... a permanent one.” 

“yeah good. this place kinda sucks.”

Gordon and Coomer were now playing soccer.

“was never my dream to be a piece of shit science man. i always wanted to be a streamer. play video games... be on the couch... nah. you probably don’t care,” Benrey drifted off into a low mumble.

Dr. G smiled. “Well, Mr. Ben-rey... perhaps there is... hope for that dream yet.” 

“That sounds like a dumbass dream,” Bubby said bluntly. 

Benrey blushed.

“But it’s your dream, and I like you, so that makes it pretty great.”

A smile crept across Benrey’s face, and he tried his hardest to get out something sincere.

“poggers.”

Better luck next time. 

Benrey got up, walking up to Gordon and patting him on the shoulder.  
“WELP. the group has decided you’re cool. so you can stay.”

“Oh, I can stay?” Gordon asked, narrowing his eyebrows. “And what did the group say about the interloper? The interloper in the orange suit?”

“the group said nothing about me because i’m the leader.”

“Well, maybe they’re afraid of you. Maybe you’re silencing them. GROUP VOTE!” 

“nah dude sorry. heehoo was over a few minutes ago,” Benrey said idly. “yo, coomer, wanna try and jump this cliff or something?” He pointed up to the cliff that blocked their way to civilization.

“No!” Coomer answered happily.

“cool.” 

The group headed inside, but not before Benrey got a good chuckle at the door saying ‘Blast donger’. 

“oh fuck hold on wait. there actually IS donger-“ Benrey quickly ducked behind the wall, seeing more soldiers... but no bombs, which meant Darnold wasn’t there. Benrey kinda missed his antics.

The rest of the science team charged, and Benrey followed soon after. Quickly, the soldiers were eliminated and the group was left standing in a plain of corpses.

“Benrey, I’m fairly certain with THESE deaths that we’ve wiped out the entire US Military,” Bubby said confidently, pushing his glasses up. 

Benrey nodded incredulously, and busted the door down.

What awaited them there was a land of pure imagination and delight-  
Well, not really. It was a normal computer room. 

“Welcome to Wikipedia, Benrey!” Coomer exclaimed, spinning around like a princess in a musical number.

“whuh?”

“It’s Wikipedia!”

“Wikipedia is where Black Mesa gets all our funding, Benrey,” Bubby clarified. “Come look!” 

“that’s kinda neat,” Benrey muttered, stepping into the room and looking around. 

Gordon, meanwhile, was drawn to the siren song that was the gigantic globe in the middle of the room. He put his hand to it, skimming articles, only to find the one on Black Mesa.

“yo. gordos. what’re you doin’.”

“I’m... Updating the wiki. It’s outdated,” Gordon snapped, looking back at the globe. He concentrated, all the words about Black Mesa slowly getting replaced with the words GORDON FREEMAN repeating. Gordon closed his eyes, feeling the history of Black Mesa enter that thing this form called a “brain”- its conception, its purpose, its meddling in Xen-

ERROR

“Good news, Benrey! Black Mesa is now IP banned from Wikipedia!” Bubby said. 

“wowwwww. CLASSIC gordon,” Benrey said with a snort.

“Wh- this isn’t my fault!” Gordon lied. “You hacked into the server, didn’t you? And you blamed it on me! You’re evil. You fucking know that?” Gordon said angrily, hair flaring up.

The beginning of another bicker session was quickly cut off by a robotic voice that echoed through the facility.

ROCKET. LAUNCH. 

“ooh. good idea”, Benrey said with a mischevious cackle, and darted further into the depths of Wikipedia.

“DON’T FUCK ANYTHING UP IN THERE!” Gordon yelled, chasing after him. 

ROCKET. FACILITY ENTRY. DETECTED.

Benrey giggled, darting from corridor to corridor, as Gordon chased after him, getting lost along the way- Benrey even started chasing after HIM!

PLEASE. ACTIVATE. ROCKET.

Benrey stopped. “oh yeah. oops.” He made his way to an area with a glowing, red button.

Looked promising.

ACTIVATE. ROCKET. NOW.

“so impatient,” Benrey tutted, and he pressed the button gently.

Gordon was still looking outside the facility while the windows shut- like an idiot. Benrey scoffed, yanking him in.

“What was that for?!”

“um, you’re welcome for saving your life.”

Benrey heard something VERY loud taking place outside- and it wasn’t just the rocket.

“MY DREAM COMES TRUE! I’M LEAVING THIS WORLD!” Bubby yelled triumphantly.

Benrey just whistled. He was impressed. He then shielded his eyes as an eruption of light made the entire room nothing but scorching white. Soon after, though, it faded.

Bubby was gone.

ROCKET. LAUNCH. GOOD.

“whuh? rocket launch good?”

YES.

Benrey looked around for Bubby, waiting for him to come back- 

And he did! Just around the corner, Bubby came, light catching on his glasses so Benrey couldn’t read his expression.

“so, uh, how was it.”

“...”

“bubby?”

Bubby stood there silently for a few seconds.

Then, he caught ablaze.

_“There’s nothing there.”_

Benrey stepped backwards. “like, in space? no i’m pretty sure there’s space junk and st-“

Bubby cut him off, fists trembling with nothing but red-hot ANGER.

_**“There’s nothing THERE.”** _

Benrey gulped.

Suddenly, he was hit with the force of what felt like 300 clones, as Bubby slammed him onto the ground, holding him in place as his face got singed.

“DID YOU KNOW?”

“WHY ISN’T THERE ANYTHING THERE?!”

“ANSWER ME!”

_**“ANSWER ME, DAMMIT!-“** _

Bubby froze, the expression leaving his face as his eyes looked past Benrey.

Benrey assumed this was another glitch reset, and Bubby would pop back to normal, but things seemed... different.  
It felt like even the hairs on his neck had stopped moving.

**“Mister Benrey...”**

There was a sound that Benrey could only describe as the absence of sound, and the clacking of dress shoes. Bubby was gently lifted off of Benrey, left to stay hanging in whatever frozen stasis this was. Benrey could feel his hand get pulled up by the strange figure, and as he got lifted to his feet, he met eyes with the stranger with the glowing irises. His face held a serenity that just barely hid a threat of danger, but his smile never quite met his eyes.

**“I thought you would have known by now... fire is something dangerous, and not to... not to be toyed with.”**

**“I read all about it, and... you can too, on Wikipedia... The FREE encyclopedia, Mr. Benrey...”**

With a final smile, the figure disappeared, the only thing remaining of him was the aftertaste of soda creeping into Benrey’s mouth. He glanced over at the homicidal scientist, who was smiling at him like nothing had happened. 

“Hello, Benrey!”

That was the first time Benrey had fainted from shock. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> now all my hlvrai fans out there know that act 2 part 2 is REALLY fun because that’s when shit gets REAL.
> 
> which, evidently, also means i get to bend the story to my own whims. that’s right! a lot of last chapter ended up being me paraphrasing hlvrai but since we got DARNOLD here and WIKIPEDIA and GMAN BEING A GROUCHY GUS and BUBBY there’s a whole bunch of stuff i changed and rearranged.
> 
> still, i hope you enjoy anyways! thank you again for all your support!


	5. Act 3: Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s preschool day today. We’re following preschool rules, I guess.

Let’s see. 

Why hadn’t the player picked up Half-Life again? 

Well, first of all, they were busy for most of the day trying to recover the lost save file. Yeah, that little fainting spell Benrey had... as much as they’d like to say they fainted too, for ‘realism’, that was the game crashing.

Eventually they got it working- they wouldn’t be a real gamer if they didn’t know their way around a computer, after all. Still.. it took a few episodes of Breaking Bad and AVGN until they finally gave in and booted up their headset.

What, they weren’t SCARED of the AI, were they? Worried they were too lax, and somehow turned their companions against them?

Companions or not, it was still a game. The player steered themselves, and prepared to get back in the mind of...

“Benrey. Get up already, asshole...”

Benrey’s eyes fluttered open, feeling his body temperature slowly fall back to normal thanks to something cold and hard, yet smooth, gently getting stroked across his forehead. He hummed contentedly, settling down and closing his eyes.

“Come on, man! How long do you even need to do this for?”

Hold on. That voice... 

Gordon?

Benrey opened his eyes again, staring at Gordon, as he ran that thing- was it his hand? Gordon’s hands always felt pretty icy- through his hair. 

“Are you up? Can I stop?” Gordon asked.

“uh... yeah.”

Gordon sighed with relief, bringing his hand back towards him...

The hand holding a headcrab.

“gordon what the fuck.” 

“What? The others told me to take care of you, so that’s what I did. Talk about ungrateful,” Gordon muttered, folding his arms.

“but what part of that involves head crabs, man?” Benrey pressed.

“Well, they told me that ice packs help from fainting, and this is BASICALLY the same thing, right?” Gordon replied. He was stroking the headcrab like it was a common household pet. 

“yeah- no.”

“Agree to disagree,” Gordon said, letting go of the headcrab. The both of them watched it scuttle off. “Anyways, the others are waiting downstairs.”

“cool, lemme just-“ 

Gordon kicked him down the ladder shaft.

CLUNK!

Benrey should have known Gordon wouldn’t keep that nice streak up for that long. 

“Hello, Benrey! Nice of you to drop in!” Bubby said. Coomer gave him a fist bump for that epic pun.

“so uh. what’s on the bucket list for today,” Benrey said with a groan, getting up and stretching. 

“Well, Benrey, our current objective is to reach the Lambda Lab! We should be able to get there in about three days’ time,” Bubby exclaimed. 

“UUUUUUGH, that’s more than one or two,” Benrey whined.

“Benrey, I’d say we have about two more days until we reach the Lambda Lab!” 

“that’s less than three. but more than one.”

“Benrey, I’d say we have about three more hours until we reach the Lambda Lab!”

Benrey clicked his tongue with a smirk. “now that’s what i like to hear.”

Gordon scaled down the ladder slowly, hopping down next to Benrey.

“let’s vamoose,” Benrey said, running ahead of the others. 

He stopped suddenly, though, and fought the urge to gag.

“Oh, Benrey, what’s the matter?” Coomer asked, coming up behind him.

Benrey pointed silently at the second vehicular section of the game.

“Oh. ...I see.”

Benrey silently flopped inside the tram, waiting for the rest to pile in. 

Coomer, being the wise old sage, took the lead-

Only for the train to go backwards and ram itself into the wall. 

“Whoopsiiiie!~” Coomer sang. “Let me get us back on track-“

The train jerked forward, then slammed itself again.

Benrey chuckled. “we’re GOIN HOOOOOOOOOME!”

(Clipping the mic again, as usual.)

“Oh, stop it, doctor, let ME try,” Bubby protested. He leaned over to the control panel and started pushing a random assortment of buttons, leading the train to take off like a rocket. 

“BUBBY! WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT TOUCHING THOSE?!” Coomer yelled, getting further and further away from Benrey’s earshot.

Because he had fallen off the train.

Why did this always happen to him?

Luckily, he wasn’t the only one who was suffering. Bubby had apparently driven the train straight into a wall, making the vehicle section a very short-lived venture.

“let’s go take a dip,” Benrey said, whistling. The rest of the science team followed him, considering he looked like he knew where he was going.  
“welcome, to the psychic puzzle.”

“Benrey, check this out!” Coomer said confidently, diving under the water. He came up a few seconds later, and some barrels bobbed out of the water with him. “Look how fast I can solve this puzzle!” 

“yooo. designated puzzle GOD,” Benrey yelled, hyping Coomer up as he hopped across the barrels.

“I’m intelligent too, you know,” Bubby muttered to himself.

“Benrey, Bubby graduated SEVEN TIMES!” Coomer announced.

Benrey sighed, looking to the next section.

He HATED underwater sections.

“BBBBB,” He said reluctantly, sticking his head under the water:

The others tried to talk to him, only to have similar results.

Benrey finally got above water, only to hit his head on the spilled surface above.

Jeez.

It was cramped in here.

Benrey steeled himself, trying to scope around the place.

“Well, gentlemen, it’s a good thing we all brought our Black Mesa PowerLungs!”

Coomer was NOT helping. 

Benrey quickly dove back down.

After some more kicking and complaining, the science team cleared the water, all of them wet and smelling like sewage. 

“Benrey? If there’s anymore water up ahead, I’m going to kill a man!” Coomer said happily. 

They went around the corner, and saw a pool of water.

Benrey slowly pointed Coomer’s gun away from his face. 

They ventured into a side room, and Benrey stopped the group, gesturing to a scientist. He was talking about a shark tranquilizer, but Benrey didn’t quite catch the last part, mainly due to Coomer pistol-whipping him to death.

“Benrey, he might have been trying to lure you into a TRAP!”

“...Nobody’s going to do THAT today!”

“well maybe you could have let him finish talking though,” Benrey grunted. 

“Benrey, that man was my best friend. That means I can access his memories,” Bubby comforted. He crouched down, and Benrey could have sworn Bubby’s mouth was lined with sharp teeth.

Bubby made a HORRIBLE noise, then stuck his head back up, smiling at Benrey. “BAD NEWS, Benrey! Necrosis has set in!” 

“that mean we win?”

“No!”

Benrey blew a raspberry. 

He stopped, hearing some mumbling.

“gordon can you repeat yourself?”

“Repeat what?” Gordon asked innocently.

“Yes, Benrey, is your hearing going spotty again?” Coomer asked.

“...”

“nothing. nevermind. let’s just go.”

Benrey walked outside, finding himself on a large platform suspended above the water. He sighed. They were going to have to go in, weren’t they?

“Don’t worry, Benrey. Watch how goddamn smart I am,” Bubby said, loading the tranquilizer crossbow and pointing it. In one swift shot, the shark creature bobbed up to the surface, dead as a doornail.  
“Don’t fuck with us!”

“HELL YEAH, BRO,” Benrey said, high-fiving Bubby. The two of them leapt off the makeshift diving board, and soaking wet and laughing, they made their way into the next hallway.

Benrey stopped them again soon, however, because there it was again... that WHISPERING.

“that you?” He said, turning to Dr. G. The man simply shook his head.

“who’s talking, man?”

“We’re talking about how we want to get going, Benrey!” Coomer said with a smile. Gordon, noticeably, had been shadowing Coomer for a while now like he had previously done with Benrey. 

He shifted from one foot to the other foot, being unable to make any words come out of his mouth. Benrey just silently went on ahead. 

The clearing eventually turned into a bright red hallway. Red meant danger, it meant... It meant blood, and seeing things badly, and-

“Mr. Ben-rey, are you...Faring well?” Dr. G said, coming up behind him.

“yeah um. yeah. just been a little... on edge.”

“Well, maybe you wouldn’t be on edge if you stopped killing people and going places you don’t belong!” Gordon cut in.

“funny that you’re the one saying- saying that to me,” Benrey said back.

“Me? I’m just doing my job! Stop killing people!”

“I’M NOT DOING IT ON PURPOSE!”

Gordon was silent.

So was Benrey.

Aside from some shaky breathing.

“Aaaaaaaaaa~”

By this point, Benrey would have to be stupid not to know that the blue orbs meant ‘calm down’. But still, it surprised him every time that it did just what it said.

Man, he really needs to stop letting his cardboard-faced facade slip.

“How does it taste, Benrey?” Bubby said, walking past.

“like blue gamer fuel.”

“this stream still isn’t sponsored though.”

They emerged out of the Red Zone of Anger and Hatred, but Benrey was starting to realize this was a different zone of anger and hatred: More fucking water. 

Benrey crouched near the edge of the water as Bubby loaded the crossbow.  
“hey could you die please? please be die now?”

Bubby shot the beast with an enthusiastic cackle.

“thanks so much.” 

They ventured onwards to a part that was completely water-free. (FINALLY!) On top of that, for the first time in a while, he could feel Gordon’s vest bump into him every time he stopped abruptly. 

“Enlighten me, huh? Why do you have to kill so many things?” Gordon asked, leaning over Benrey’s head.

“cos,” Benrey said, smacking his lips. “cos they’re aliens bro. they’re attacking us.”

“You probably attacked them first.”

“Myreh meh meh meh myrst,” Benrey mimicked back. 

“Fine. You wanna act like a first grader? I’ll act like a fuckin’ first grader,” Gordon grumbled.

“MYEHHHHHHH.”

“Jesus, you’re better at being a child than I am.” 

Benrey snickered, climbing up the ladder to the physics puzzle.

“ok guys watch this. i’m doing a test.”

“What test, Benrey?” Bubby asked, leaning on the railing. 

Benrey slowly pushed a large, metal box over the edge, then looked at Gordon dead-on.

“the physics work.”

“Now, Benrey, follow my lead. If we can time this just right, then we can make it across, easy as Pie!” Dr. Coomer said, stepping up to the plate. “One, two, and.. HYAH!”

Coomer made it to the other side with no problems, as expected.

...Well, no, not quite. He fell halfway through.

(And then noclipped to the other side.)

“yo gordos. what’re you doing,” Benrey asked, staring at Gordon, who was sitting criss-cross.

“I’m waiting,” Gordon answered.

“for?”

“The end.”

Well, Gordon was no help. 

Benrey psyched himself up a bit, sprinting in place, before he leapt to the first moving platform. Great! He made it. Now if he could just make the next two...

Benrey wiffed it completely and landed on the ground.

“Benrey, you fucked it up!” Coomer called from the other side. 

“yeah i think i can tell.”

He climbed up the ladder again, and decided to push the bigger metal crate to where the platforms started, climbing it. He took a leap off that instead, and it worked... Surprisingly well. He managed to land every jump, and cross over to the other side, where the rest of the team was waiting for him.

(Seriously, what was with these guys and clipping past puzzles when he wasn’t looking...?)

“when’d gordon get over here?” Benrey asked, leaning closer to the guard.

“I used the...” Gordon’s eyes shifted to the side. “Staff entrance.”

“chicken head.”

“I’m not a chicken head!” Gordon huffed.

“‘s bubby here too?” Benrey continued, looking past Gordon as he was walking off.

“I’m right here, Benrey!” Bubby said, giving a friendly wave.

Benrey waved slowly, only because he was concentrating on something else-

Coomer and Gordon were whispering again. 

“You see what I mean with this shit?” Gordon murmured, and Coomer nodded with concern.

“yo what’s up?” Benrey asked, scooting closer to the two of them.

“Oh, me and Gordon were just having a Talk between Friends! You’ve done that before, haven’t you, Benrey?” Coomer said with a smile. 

“...i guess,” Benrey muttered, embarrassed.

They pressed forward, as Bubby kept giving inaccurate temporal estimates for the Lambda Lab. 

“oh shit look. wikipedia SERVER ROOM,” Benrey said, stepping into the room and looking around at all the buzzing computer servers.

“What? No, we- we went to Wikipedia already. We got IP banned,” Gordon said, putting his hands on his hips.

“this is the body room. that was the brain room.”

Benrey dodged an attacking alien, and Gordon took out his crowbar. “SPIN MOVE!!” He spun around like an idiot, dealing about the same amount of damage that he usually would. 

“You know, gentlemen, I believe there’s too much information in the world,” Coomer said. He gave the first server a good hard punch, and sent the rest toppling over like dominoes.

“niiiice. now all the articles are ONLINE for FREE.”

“I... don’t think that’s how it works,” Gordon muttered. 

“The free online encyclopedia that NO ONE will EVER edit again!” Bubby chirped.

They headed into the next room after the servers stopped being busted as all hell, only to see a scientist there.

He went on for a while, prattling about the military, but something that he said made Gordon’s hair stand on end, and his pupils shrank with interest.

Benrey’s suit had... tracking devices?

Benrey looked down at his suit.

“yo, they can track me?”

Coomer gave him a look. “Benrey, that means you’ve been leading the military to us this entire time.” 

“‘s not my fault...” Benrey said quietly. “this is all i got.”

“Then maybe you need to die,” Gordon muttered.

“...what?”

Coomer quickly broke the silence by shooting the scientist.  
“Another clone defeated!”

Gordon started spitting balls at the corpse. 

Making their way through more rooms, it felt like it was opposite day or something. Gordon and Coomer were practically inseparable, and meanwhile, Dr. G seemed awfully intent on staying as close to Benrey as he possibly could, eyeing Gordon every few minutes or so.

“Hello? Anyone here?” Coomer said as he ventured out into an open space.

...Only to immediately get shot at.

“DR. COOMER! WATCH OUT!” Bubby yelled. “BOOBIES- MY BIGGEST FEAR!”

“oh no thanks. i don’t like girls,” Benrey said, taking aim at the stealthy- apparently boobed- assassin. 

He shot down one, but a few more came, and the rest of the gang was forced to help out... even if Bubby complained the whole time. 

Gordon walked past the corpses littering the field with a pompous arrogance.   
“I don’t think we should be worrying about this.”

He went down the right corner, and Dr. G, picking up speed, quickly followed him. 

“oh yoooo it’s a DONUT,” Benrey said, picking up a skull and showing it to the group.

Nobody laughed.

“Benrey, come look! I think surface access is over here!” Coomer yelled, and Benrey quickly dropped his donut to go meet up with the rest of the gang.

Before the hallway continued, there was a room that looked to be for storage of some kind, the centrepiece being a med kit.

“Benrey, you don’t look so hot. I think you’re hurt,” Gordon said, putting a hand on his shoulder.

“huh? no i’m good.”

“Medical stations can be used to recover from wounds, Benrey!” Bubby suggested.

“no i think-“

“Benrey, it might be a good idea to stock up before the surface. There could be more soldiers,” Coomer pressed.

“i mean, i guess- if you guys really want med kit that baaaad. maybe there’ll be blu-ray in there,” Benrey muttered.

“Yes! Tons of Blu-Ray!” Gordon nodded.

“and you’re all sure ‘bout this?”  
Everyone nodded.

...Where was Dr. G?

He could always catch up later. It’s fine. Benrey just had to grab the med kit, and go. He stepped in, being ushered in by Gordon and Coomer on either side of him.

Easy-

As soon as he stepped inside, the lights cut out.

“huh? guys?” Benrey spun around a few times, holding his arms out.

“bubby? coomer? ...gordon??”

He heard footsteps on the metal, and sighed in relief. There were his friends.

“There he is, gentlemen! GET HIM,” Coomer said, the most serious Benrey had ever heard him.

“wha??”

Benrey felt a splitting pain in his stomach as a fist rocketed into it. Then another into his face, and another, one right after the other.

“It’s nothing personal, Benrey, just... business,” Coomer continued. “Besides, escaping might make you stronger!”

“what do you m- AGH!” Benrey choked, feeling blood dribble out of his mouth as he tried to get the words out, winded.

“h-ugh.... guys... help benrey...” He moaned, as the soldiers dragged him down further.

Gordon chuckled, his eyes lighting up in the darkness.   
“I’ve been waiting for this moment for so long... you have no IDEA how long, Benrey.”

Benrey’s vision was fuzzy, and one Gordon turned into two or three Gordons, the world spinning. 

“That’s it, boys. Do your job right and he’ll be out of our hair in no time,” Gordon said, with a dark edge to his voice.

“bubby.... c’mon...” Benrey cried out weakly, choking on his own blood.

“Benrey, I wish I could help, but it appears you’re all out of PlayCoins.”

Dammit.

“...Wait. Hold on. What are they doing to his-“

Benrey couldn’t see much, but he could hear the sheen of an army knife, clear as day. His eyes widened.

The knife came down, and Benrey SCREAMED. 

“Wait, stop! Leave his arm alone! That wasn’t part of the deal!” Coomer cried out, sounding almost as anguished as Benrey.

“What the hell? That’s not supposed to be off his body!” Gordon yelled, his voice wavering a bit.  
“...Is it??”

“NO!” Benrey roared, trying to choke back sobs of pain.

“gordon...” he rasped, vision going fainter than it already was.  
“GOR...DON....!”

He attempted to thrash out of the soliders’ grip one last time, in a desperate try to get Gordon back, but he was weak, delirious from blood loss...

Gordon adjusted his helmet, just before Benrey passed out.

“Goodnight, Benrey.”

  
The science team (sans Benrey) walked out of the med station as if nothing had happened. What waited for them there was Dr. G- and he did NOT look happy. 

“Gordon...”

“Where is Mr. Ben-rey.”

Gordon smiled. “Oh, you don’t need to worry about him anymore, Dr. G. The security threat’s been taken care of.”

“I’m... not asking you if he was... taken CARE of.”

Gordon’s expression darkened. “That’s all that matters right now.”

Meanwhile, further up in Black Mesa, a half-conscious Benrey was trying to adjust. 

He knew three things.

One- his friends had just betrayed him.

Two- he was not moving of his own accord.

Three- his arm hurt.

He was cut off by the low murmur of voices- a conversation.

“Where are we takin’ this guy?”

“Topside. For questioning.”

“What the hell for? We got him.”  
“Let’s kill him now!”

“Uh... and if they find the body?”

The soldier laughed.

**“What body?”**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i think i’ve discovered a pattern!
> 
> ...which is i am Not good at writing the first part of acts. aaa
> 
> take this bad boy anyways! i love you and i’m sorry


	6. Act 3: Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s a world outside of here, Benrey.

Benrey was awake- it took a while, but he was awake.

Really, really awake.

He groaned, moving to nurse his head with his right hand-

It was gone.

His hand was gone.

He shot up, cupping the stump that was formerly his hand.

Benrey knew three things.

One- He was alone. 

Two- Everything hurt.

Three- He was going to KILL that security guard. 

Benrey slowly got up, but fell to the side as soon as he did. He grunted, inching himself along using the wall to prop himself up.

Gordon... Coomer. 

Those bastards. 

He thought he could trust them- Of course, Benrey was a bit of a jerk, he knew that, but why did-?

He inhaled sharply, feeling his entire body tremble. 

And then, Benrey started to sniffle. He sunk to the ground again, tucking his face into his knees.

(Why now?)

(Why’d they have to have a meltdown when they’re all alone?)

Benrey was cursing himself internally- how EMBARASSING, to be crying over this... but he couldn’t help it.

He was alone.

And for the first time in a while, he was really, truly scared. 

...No.

He can’t sit around crying.

Well, he wasn’t going to STOP, but he needed to move or else he’d get himself killed.

So that’s how Benrey, delirious from blood loss and light-hearted from crying, started his epic journey to get out of the trash compactor. 

Eventually, Benrey managed to claw his way out with one hand, lying on the ground outside as he rubbed his still-red eyes. Everything hurt, but it was starting to hurt less... maybe it was the shock of it all. 

Still, despite that, Benrey knew one ugly truth was beginning to rear its head-

If any aliens found him, he was as good as dead. 

Benrey trudged through the arid canyons like a zombie, the telltale buzzing of overstimulation in his ear almost drowning out the sounds of his own muffled sobbing.

Almost.

He turned the corner and stopped. Of course... of COURSE he’d run into a head crab now of all times.

“um... hey, bro...” Benrey said hoarsely, backing against the wall and trying to shuffle past the crab. 

This was, predictably, an unsuccessful venture. 

The crab leapt at Benrey, and he just barely ducked, slamming into the wall as the crab crashed behind him. He nursed his right side gingerly, moving forward to where he saw a giant, industrial structure... 

Oh, great.

And a ladder. 

Benrey sucked in some air through his teeth cautiously, wiping his eyes. Time to climb. It was hard with one hand- not to mention he had never been good with ladders.

(The player honestly couldn’t tell whether it was the game’s terrible ladder engine or the fact that their hands were currently shaking harder than a muscle massager.) 

Through effort, and a LOT of slipping, Benrey finally made it up, hoisting the rest of himself up. That proved to be hard, too, when he kept trying to grip with his right hand.

He landed face-up on the wooden platform at the top, and as the elevator gently lowered him down, he tried to keep his breath steady. 

The elevator brought him down to a cramped system of tunnels, which didn’t do much to help Benrey’s mental state at the moment. Still, a way through was a way through, and he could just deal with the cramped inside.

He was really feeling the despair... alone in a tunnel. 

Nobody to help him.

Not even an arm.

He gradually lifted himself up to the end of the tunnel, studying the room- It was cast in a glowing green light, all except for...

A pair of glowing blue eyes. 

“doc...?” Benrey asked quietly, slumping over to the side of the tunnel. 

Dr. G looked up in surprise.

“Mr. Ben-rey... what happened to your arm...?” Was the first thing to come out of his mouth.

Benrey laughed nervously, already feeling the tears threaten to brim up again at the thought of his lost hand. “it’s, uh, it’s a long story.”

“Well, why don’t you... come down here. I have the time to listen.”

Benrey nodded, slowly dropping down to face him. For once, Dr. G looked worried- Benrey didn’t even think that could happen.

“lessee.. where do i begin.”

“it’s um, kinda hard to tell... why it happened, cos... i went in, i thought there’d be blu-ray, gordon said there might be blu-ray, and the soldiers, they...”

Benrey wrung his stump as he trailed off. “‘n they... cut...”

Dr. G patted him on the shoulder. 

“Mr. Ben-rey, I feel the need to... apologize. You were under my... protection, and I was... not careful enough.”

“i’m huh?”

Dr. G continued. “Mr. Freeman... he decided to betray my trusst as well, hurting you...”

“For that, he will pay dearly.”

“...does that mean you’re back on my side and shit?”

“Mr. Ben-rey...” Dr. G said with a sigh.  
“I never left.”

“...”

Benrey quietly pulled Dr. G into a hug, muffling his sobs in the taller man’s vest.  
Dr. G blinked once or twice in confusion, but returned the hug, rubbing Benrey on the back.

With a sniffle, Benrey looked up at Dr. G.  
“can you be my dad now?”

“...No.”

“that’s okay.”

They stayed there for a while, Dr. G just making sure Benrey was alright. Finally, Benrey slid his hand off him, and nodded.

“humanity restored.”

“Excellent... I need you to be in top... condition, if you are to carry out.. what needs to be done.”

“yeah. ‘bout that... can you do something? ‘bout this?” He waggled his arm stump in front of Dr. G, who pushed it aside gently.

“Although I have... many abilities that are unlike your own, Mr. Ben-rey... restoring arms is not one of them. However, the... Mixology Department can help you. I believe it is on the way to the Lambda lab,” Dr. G assured Benrey.

“mixology? i don’ want any alcohol, broooo...”

“Black Mesa’s mixologists excel in... potion-making, Mr. Ben-rey. The details are... classified, of course, but I can... phone in a favour.”

“yeah nice. as long as i get my arm back i’m good.”

The two of them walked into another section of tunnel... But now that Benrey wasn’t alone, it wasn’t too bad.

Never before had Benrey been so thankful to have a travelling partner.

“did you, uh. did you see any of the others?” Benrey asked quietly. “how were they doin!?”

Dr. G’s brow furrowed as he stepped onto a platform in the current room. “Mr. Freeman... refused to divulge where they had taken you, and when I... took matters into my own hands to find you, we... went our separate ways.”

“you see bubby at all?” Benrey continued. The last thing he could remember Bubby saying was something about PlayCoins- how was he? Was he on Benrey’s side, too, or just saying that to be polite?

Dr. G shook his head.

“...bummer.”

“hey, gimme a boost? kinda don’t want my stump to get irradiated,” Benrey said, holding his arms up. Dr. G boosted him up.  
“sucks that there’s so much sludge.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Dr. G mumbled. 

“so, uh... why’d you think they did it?” Benrey asked, hopping onto a conveyor belt. “chopped this, i mean?”

Dr. G looked away. “I am... unsure, myself. I never got the chance to... question the group. From your story, I believe that... that was merely the doing of the mil-itary. An... act of aggression, if you will.”

Benrey thought back to that moment in the dark- what he remembered of it, anyways. Even Gordon seemed to be confused about what they were doing. 

“yeah. seems about right.”

“i. um. i don’t like it though.”

“Nobody likes losing a hand, Mr. Ben-rey.”

The two of them came to the end of the conveyor, and Benrey looked down, swearing under his breath.

“sewage. i hate sewage with my life.”

“...Hand me your arm,” Dr. G said.

Benrey complied curiously. Dr. G slowly took off his lab coat, and undid his vest underneath. He wrapped the vest around Benrey’s stump tightly in a cast, then nodded. 

“I apologize for the... improvisation, but one... does what one must.”

Benrey smirked. “you’re not so bad, old man.”

As Dr. G put his lab coat back on, Benrey dove into the water. The cast worked... well, it worked well enough. It still stung whenever Benrey swam around, but he’s sure it would be stinging a lot more if he hadn’t had Dr. G’s vest there.

Benrey saw orangey-yellow light glistening through the water- that must be an opening. Benrey swam towards it, hearing muffled noise coming from the room. He tried to hoist himself up fully, but quickly, something on the floor attacked him.

It was Bubby, and yet... 

It wasn’t. 

It was an animalistic version of the scientist, crawling on all fours and snarling, eyes devoid of all emotion that wasn’t rage. 

More and more of them piled onto Benrey, as a dark chuckled echoed through the battlefield, surrounded by fire.

Out of it, stepped Bubby- The real one. 

“Well, Benrey? How do you like them? These are what Black Mesa called the Prototypes.”

“they’re shit,” Benrey choked, shoving prototypes off him as quick as he could.

“Shit, huh?” Bubby repeated with a snarl. “That’s what you see ME as, right? Just a fucked up, BROKEN PROTOTYPE!”

“dude- ow- what are you TALKING about??”

“I’VE SEEN OUTSIDE BLACK MESA, BENREY. THERE’S NOTHING THERE. But YOU... I know there’s a world in your dreams. And I need to go there.”

“dude. i have no idea what you’re talking about!! i’m sorry, man! dr. g where the hell are you??” Benrey cried, flailing his stump uselessly at the prototypes as they pushed him closer to the ring of fire.

Then, all at once, they fell limp.

Dr. G had come to Benrey’s rescue, wielding a gun bigger than any Benrey had seen.

“took you long enough,” Benrey wheezed, getting up and trying to fight off the rest of the prototypes.

“Doctor, get out. This isn’t your fight,” Bubby snarled, the flames around the battlefield rising.

“Tsk, tsk... the moment you attacked him, you... MADE it my fight,” Dr. G replied flatly, firing off a warning shot. 

Bubby furrowed his brow. “You have no idea how desperate I am...”  
“I’M TIRED of ‘Hello, Benrey’. I’m TIRED of PlayCoins. I’M TIRED OF BEING THE FUCKING CHAPERONE!” 

“man, you don’t gotta kill us over it!” Benrey yelled back, body slamming one of the prototypes. 

“Just stop fighting back. It’ll be over soon,” Bubby muttered. 

“no! i’m a real gamer who doesn’t rage quit!” Benrey ran up to Bubby, kicking off a final prototype that Dr. G had shot off his leg.

This time, it was HIM who had the upper hand, as he tackled Bubby to the ground like Bubby had done to him not too long ago.

“i don’t wanna hurt you, man... but if you hit me i gotta hit back,” Benrey said quietly.

“You hurt me first,” Bubby growled.

“huh? wha?”

“Benrey...  
Every time you go to sleep, I can feel my born being TORN apart. Atom by atom. It’s AGONIZING, Benrey.”

“I’ve seen it. I’ve SEEN there’s nothing out there. But YOU...” Bubby was interrupted by Benrey slapping him across the face.

“c’mon, man! stop this shit! it’s not cool OR epic!”

“You’re DIFFERENT from us, aren’t you Benrey? You KNOW there’s a world outside here. And I NEED you to TAKE me there.” 

Bubby grabbed Benrey by the throat and flipped him over, grabbing a discarded gun off the ground and loading it up, blood dribbling off his nose. 

“man... this isn’t gonna help. you’re just gonna kill me and then you’ll be saaad.”

Bubby scoffed. “You’re just saying that.”

“no, i mean it. if you kill me i won’t be around anymore. and that’s saaaad. and you’ll be all alone and lonely. and coomer won’t be there, or gordon, or the doc... it’s lonely.” 

“you don’t wanna be lonely, right?”

“What other choice do I have?! What does it matter if there’s nothing here?” Bubby said, voice trembling.

“well, i’m here.”  
“you’re here too.”  
Benrey smiled.   
“and there’s a blu-ray player- well we didn’t FIND one yet but there’s probably one. and we can put in the blu-ray of.. of all dogs go to heaven 2. and we can watch it. and see if gordon dies at the end.” 

“...” Bubby slowly started lowering the gun.

“listen, man, i know it hurts. i’m sorry. look at- look at my arm! i don’t got a hand!! it’s bad! but. but my good pal dr. g is here. and we can get out of here and go home. and play video games.”  
“and you can come with us maybe.” 

Bubby finally dropped the gun, and the flames surrounding the battlefield slowly died down. He let go of Benrey, and Benrey sat up to stare at him.

“hey, c’mon, man, why you still look so down?” He asked.

“...I don’t want it to hurt anymore, Benrey,” Bubby muttered.

“i know,” Benrey agreed quietly. 

“But if it means becoming some fucked-up monster that wears you like a suit, then dammit, I’ll let it hurt! I’ll get callouses! I’ll... I don’t know, I’ll just DO it!” He shouted triumphantly, grabbing Benrey’s shoulders.

“what was that first part?”

“Nothing!”

“Glad to see you’ve... come back around to the... winning side,” Dr. G said, adjusting his tie. 

“so, um... bubby. know anything about coomer and gordon?” Benrey asked, rocking back and forth slightly.

“Let’s see here... I believe Dr. Coomer and Gordon had been... whispering for some time now about how to deal with a problem. Benrey... I believe you’re that problem.”

“kinda mean,” Benrey muttered.

“I think they’re just being petty. Between you and me? They know you and I carry this team.”  
“...No offense, Doctor.”

Dr. G rolled his eyes. “...None taken.”

“Anyways... Benrey. We’re headed to the Lambda Lab, yes?” Bubby asked, turning back towards him.

“yeah kinda. we wanna make a pit stop near the mixology department cos. y’know,” Benrey said, sticking his stump in Bubby’s face to emphasize his lack of a hand.

“Oh! I know where that is. Yes, this is a good setup... a good setup indeed,” Bubby said, standing up and dusting himself off. Benrey got up too, quickly leaning on Dr. G for support.  
“...Is he alright?”

“benrey want bloob,” Benrey croaked.

“...Blood loss,” Dr. G clarified.   
The two- now three- headed on their way.

“so,” Benrey said, sitting on yet another conveyer belt and swinging his legs. “think coomer’s gonna fight us if we find him?”

“Hmm... Maybe!” Bubby exclaimed. “He was the founder of the underground Black Mesa Boxing Ring, you know!”  
He sighed romantically. “That was where we had our first kiss.”

“oooh. snorkin’ in the ring.”

Bubby punched him in the shoulder. 

They eventually arrived near the end of the conveyor system, and dropped off near a medkit.

“blood? blood for benrey??” Benrey asked, shaking it.. but to no avail. It spat out one or two ounces of juice, then died. He sighed, and made his way into the next room. There was a sign there that read “Prototype Storing Unit”. Benrey spun around to face Bubby.

“yo, um, this yours?” He said, pointing to the sign.

Bubby nodded. “This... This is where the Tubes are. Only one of them was mine, though... I woke up there and freed the rest of them to- well, you know.”

“hunt me down and kill me?”

“Yes! Exactly!” 

Benrey blew some air out of his cheeks, and went inside. The room was chock-full of tubes, most of them seeming to be out of order or shut off. It made sense, Benrey thought- considering a ‘prototype’ implied that Bubby was the only perfect test tube baby.

What didn’t make sense was why there was dozens of other Dr. Coomers in the pipes. 

“Ah! Benrey! You’re here! Won’t you be a friend and let me out?” One asked.

Benrey hissed instinctively, stepping back into Bubby’s chest.

“Oh, this isn’t good,” Bubby said. “These clones are all intelligent! NOW how are we supposed to tell them apart?” 

The noise in the room only grew as each individual Coomer clone noticed Benrey, and asked him to take him out of their tube.

“Well? What are we going to do?” Bubby asked quietly, as they walked deeper into the room.

“ignore ‘em,” Benrey growled. “nobody’s even sorry... i shoulda knoooown. coomer told them to- he told them to get me.”

As they approached the end of the room, there was a bigger tube, with green light lighting it up. Strangely, instead of this clone pressing their head against the glass and trying to weasel their way to freedom, this one was sitting in the corner, looking sorry for himself.

“...Benrey, I think this one’s fucked up,” Bubby said, tapping Benrey on the shoulder. 

“huh? well that can’t be right. maybe he’s not a real clone. maybe this is.. one of yours,” Benrey mumbled.

Coomer looked up, and immediately looked away. “...Ah. Hello, Benrey.” 

“yo.”

“...You can go now. I think looking at you is just making it worse.”

“Making... what worse, exactly?” Dr. G asked, approaching the tube. 

“The guilt,” Coomer said, putting his head in his hands.

“yeah. you should be guilty,” Benrey said, pressing his face up against the glass angrily. “you got any idea how much having no hand sucks for me? no you don’t. you got both your hands.”

“I know!” Coomer yelled into his hands. “I didn’t tell them to do that, I- I thought they’d just... take you somewhere else!”

“yeah cool what’d you THINK is gonna happen. gonna play a funny game with funny soldiers? NOOOOOOO.”

“I’m SORRY, Benrey! I just wanted whay was best for the group!”

“sorry won’t bring my hand back, coomer.”

Benrey paused, letting his anger wash out of him for a moment.  
“...best?”  
“why would you say that. i’m a great cool. why would you wanna kick me out?”

“Because...” Coomer sighed. “Because they said there’s trackers in your suit. And that’s why the military kept finding us. I didn’t want us to be in danger... I thought they’d remove the trackers, Benrey! You have to believe me! ...Or don’t.”  
“A rotten punishment like this suits me, anyways.”

Benrey looked back down at his stump, still cringing a little. It felt like even a gust of wind sent a new flare of pain up his arm. 

But Coomer... had he really just been trying to help? 

He looked back at the scientist, who looked more pained than he did. 

“coomer... why’d you do it, man?”

“It wasn’t my idea, really, Gordon... He proposed it to me. He wanted to keep us all safe, so-“

“THAT FUCKER,” Benrey yelled a bit too loud into the mic. He winced retroactively, already hearing the sound transfer eat the words up so badly they dissolved into gibberish.

“but still... iunno, man. i’m kinda all out of forgiveness. just like i’m ALL OUT OF RIGHT HANDS.” Benrey slammed his stump against the glass again, startling Coomer. 

He caught his own reflection in the tube. Tired, tear stains running down his eyes, hair frazzled... Looking angry as hell. 

“i wanna forgive you, man... i do... but i dunno if i’m good enough to.”

“kindness ability weak.”

He looked away from the glass.

“Er... Benrey, if I may...” Bubby piped up. “If you can’t have him join us out of forgiveness, then perhaps out of spite?” 

“huh?”

“I mean... Theoretically, if we had more of us, we could beat the hell out of those goddamn boot boys, get to the Mixology Department, and... go home!”

Benrey blinked slowly.

“y’know... that just might work.”

“BATTLE ROYALE,” Benrey said loudly. He smacked the main release button and the tube’s glass walls slowly went up.

Coomer quietly got up, hugging Bubby and planting a quick kiss on his cheek. Then, he walked over to Benrey sheepishly.   
“...Thank you. I’ll try my best to earn your forgiveness.”

“yeah you better.”

“now where’s gordon?” Benrey asked.

“Well... After Dr. G went off to find you, Gordon told Bubby that he should go find you too, and when it was just us... someone hit me over the head,” Coomer said, tapping his fingers together.

“this is why people hate the army,” Benrey groaned. 

The Neo Science Team were now four members- Benrey would argue that there’s three because he has no weapons. Bubby says he’s the moral support. 

They headed deeper into the complex, entering a room full of headcrabs in cages. 

“don’t tell me i gotta have a heart-to-heart with these guys too,” Benrey said, picking one up and fake-babying it.   
“baby widdle headcrab. wanna suck my face.”

“Put that down. You don’t know where it’s been,” Dr. G said with disgust. 

“fiiiiiine,” Benrey whined, dropping it back into the cage. 

“hey speaking of. coomer. should we uhhh go break those clones out?” Benrey asked.

“No need! I shot them all while you weren’t looking!” Coomer replied with a grin.

“Benrey, this means Dr. Coomer is now immensely powerful!” Bubby added. 

“I’m ripped as shit, Benrey!” Coomer finished, flexing.

They continued through more and more rooms, Benrey giving the stinkeye to a security guard or two.

“soooo anyone wanna guess why there’s so many crabs here? i’ll start. black mesa is actualyyyyyy... a pet stooore,” Benrey said, walking backwards through another room of headcrab cages.

“Oh! Oh! Me next!” Coomer shouted as he shot some crabs through the bars. “They were going to sell a brand new Packaged Meat with these!”

“extra points for being gross,” Benrey said with a chuckle.

“Perhaps we were going to make some crab-human hybrids?” Bubby guessed, following Coomer’s lead.

“yeah well we got ZOMBIES now. so thanks for that.”  
“i still think my guess is the best.”

After Coomer and Bubby were done shooting, they followed Benrey into a smaller testing section of the room.

“Ooh! What does this do?” Coomer asked, slamming down on the button before anyone could answer. 

The room went bright, as some device went off-

And there, standing on the table, was the skeleton.

Benrey stared at it.

It stared at him.

_Wherever you are, Gordon... I’m gonna come for you._

_Not in a gay way._

_I’m gonna kick your ass._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE FOUND FAMILY ACT IS HERE!!!!!!  
> so i may have gone all in on the found family thing. and there may be a lot more bittersweet sobbing and heart to hearts than your usual hlvrai. but i had FUN and i like CRYING ABOUT OLD MEN so there you. i gotta say... writing this was a LOT more fun than writing those water levels shdkdjjsdb. and the fun’s just getting started!


	7. Act 3: Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happened to your arm?

“we’re off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of oz, we hear he is a whiz of a wiz, if ever a wiz there waaaaas...” Benrey sang flatly. 

“There’s a wizard here?” Dr. Coomer asked, picking up speed to match Benrey’s pace.

“the wizard of... mixology, bro.”

“Ah! Yes. That does make sense. Wizards DO love bartending.”

Benrey stopped. “ooooh. sharp objects,” He said, pressing his face against the glass.

“That’s the Pita Cutter room, Benrey! It was where we were developing NEW technology to cut Pita Bread!”  
“...Though if you ask me, I might have sliced garlic bread once or twice in there.”

They continued forward, walking straight into a herd of headcrabs. Bubby, Coomer and Dr. G all took aim, leaving Benrey to sit back and watch.

“this is so not cool, man. i feel stupid,” Benrey muttered.

“Don’t be silly, Benrey!” Coomer said. “You’re doing the best you can.” He slammed a headcrab against the wall, dusting his hands off. 

“mmmmmm... i GUESS.” 

“you guys wanna rob a bank? once we’re done?”

The others looked at him in confusion, and Benrey realized that was out of left field.

“i mean, like- like if we’re able to speedrun black mesa, then a bank is- a bank is baby stuff. noob level,” Benrey explained quietly. 

“Yes! Let’s rob a fucking bank!” Bubby cheered.

“Oh, I’ve always wanted to rob someone!” Coomer agreed.

“dope. what about you, doc?” Benrey asked, looking back at Dr. G. 

“...Someone needs to make sure you... don’t get killed in there,” Dr. G mumbled.

“operation rob bank is a GOOO,” Benrey cheered, as he fumbled into the next room.

“Oooh. A puzzle!” Coomer clapped his hands together excitedly.

“yea, um-“ Benrey was interrupted as he tripped over himself and bumped into a pillar. It turned a laser on, that got reflected by a triangular prism. “oh cool.”

“Benrey, I think we should follow the laser!” Bubby yelled, taking off before he could answer. Benrey snorted, following after him quickly.

“BENREY! I FOUND A WALL!” Bubby continued.

“that’s not very nice. tell it to move please.”

“I think we can destroy it with lasers!”

Benrey nodded, ordering the group to split up. Each one managed to find the triangles to activate, and before long, Benrey could hear a loud hum coming from the room with the wall. He rushed back to the room, tripping over himself slightly. 

The laser had already began boring a hole into the wall, and Coomer was just excited as he was to see a Big Laser.

“Yes! Yes! ...Is it working? YES!” Coomer cried, as the wall exploded triumphantly.

Bubby was smiling too, as he worked the laser from its control panel. “I’m so goddamn smart.”

Finally, the dust settled, and the wall was broken down, leading the group to a new destination. 

The area below was nothing too special, really. A box or two... a few security guards.

However, one of the security guards made Benrey’s blood run cold. 

Down there, undeniably, was Gordon. 

“hey. be quiet for a second,” Benrey whispered to the others, as he inched across the ledge nearer and nearer to Gordon.

Then, he dropped. 

Ideally, he should have dropped right onto Gordon’s head, like a dope wrestler, but it was almost like Gordon KNEW. He slid out of the way effortlessly, and turned around to look at Benrey’s fallen body with a smug smile. The shadow under his eyes were too dark to just be the helmet, and his irises seemed to pulsate, a glow that became brighter and dimmed in succession, but never quite went out.

“Oh, Benrey.”

“So nice of you to drop in.”

“What happened to your arm?”

Benrey growled, getting to his feet and trying his hardest to ignore the pain.

“you... you ASSHOLE... what the hell, man?!”

Gordon laughed. “What did I tell you? You go where you’re not supposed to go, you get in trouble for it. It’s not that hard to understand!”

“YOU CUT OFF MY HAND,” Benrey shouted, already feeling his voice crack from crying.

Gordon sneered, pacing around Benrey in a circle and sticking his hands behind his back. “It’s just a lesson that’s gotta be learned! Maybe if you weren’t poking around in here, you-“

“this isn’t ABOUT security, man. everything hurts. it still STINGS, man. you’re such....” He paused, hiccuping, as he sank to the floor. “s-such an asshole...”

Benrey was crying again.

Gordon’s pacing stopped, and his expression changed from confidence to confusion.

“...Why are you leaking out of your eyes so much?”  
“I know it hurt, it was SUPPOSED to hurt, but... you can just grow a new hand, can’t you?”

“NO???” Benrey looked up, teary-eyed. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “you get TWO hands, n’ that’s- that’s IT, they’re GONE, i’m not a STARFISH...”   
“‘m not...”

Gordon furrowed his brow, clearing his throat. Teal and green orbs soon came out of it as Gordon began to sing. 

The orbs wrapped itself around Benrey’s arm, and he made a panicked squeal, but these felt... good, like an ice pack on Benrey’s wound. They spun around the stump some more, reforming and melding together, until they formed the shape of a hand. 

“See? There,” Gordon said. “Good as new.”

Benrey moved his new... hand, flexing the fingers... only for it to evaporate into thin air.

“...Oh.” 

“STOP RIGHT THERE, GORDON!” Coomer yelled, as the rest of the science team dropped down, each of them pointing a gun to his head.

Benrey smirked. At least he had friends- Gordon had nothing. 

“What are you doing?” Gordon growled, not daring to move.

“Consider it... Payback,” Dr. G said. “For what you did to Mr. Ben-rey.”

“What I did?! HE was the one putting you all in danger. HE was the one who fucked up the test! Thanks to Benrey, we’re all in this fucking mess right now!” Gordon continued, tapping his foot.

“Yes, but Benrey’s our friend. And an enemy of Benrey’s is no friend of mine!” Bubby said confidently.

“I’m not about to take the wrong side again,” Coomer agreed.

Gordon sighed. He cleared his throat and started singing again, but nobody budged. 

“...Hey, why aren’t you guys lowering your guns? Purple to green means ‘let me join the team’. C’mon.”

Nobody moved.

Gordon groaned.

“Look, I’m SORRY...”  
“...That I offended you guys.”

“...SORRY that the military are assholes?”

Gordon groaned even louder.  
“I’m SORRYYYYYYYY...”  
“thatIgotBenrey’shandcutoff,” Gordon muttered.  
“Now PLEASE can I join the team.” 

“I’m sorry, Mr. Freeman...” Dr. G said.  
“I’m afraid the team has no vacancy.”

BANG!

Gordon’s body fell limp to the ground, and Benrey backed away, getting up quickly. It was a bit macabre to see the guard that had pursued him for so long just lying there, but Gordon was the asshole that got his arm cut off, and... They’d killed for less.

“thanks, guys,” Benrey said, collapsing onto Bubby’s shoulder as he tried to ground himself.

Bubby patted him and nodded. “We wouldn’t make the same mistake of trusting him twice.” 

“Probably.”

Benrey did NOT like how that sounded, but Bubby said weird shit all the time, so he decided to ignore it and press forward. 

The next room, to Benrey’s delight, was the pita cutter room they had passed!

“oh FUCK yeah. i love bread so much,” Benrey cheered. “...do we got any bread?”

“No!” Coomer said with a smile.

“booooooo.”

The group traversed the Pita Cutter, which, for something with such a lovely name, was surprisingly dangerous. 

Benrey still wasn’t sure if he had crossed it without a scratch on his HEV suit or two. 

They moved down a hallway, and Benrey stopped in his tracks, immediately putting a hand out to stop the others.

Gordon was standing there, next to another guard.

“Howdy!”  
“So glad we got over our differences and you let me join the team,” Gordon said with a smile.

The group immediately pulled out their guns.

“Worth a shot,” Gordon grunted. He was shot again, falling to the floor.

“teabag,” Benrey chuckled, teabagging Gordon’s body. “oookay, let’s keep moving.”

As they disappeared around the corner, Gordon grunted, pushing himself up. He poked the bullet hole in his stomach once or twice, the skin growing back and repairing itself. 

He tilted his helmet down, hair growing wildly long. Like a pair of spider legs, Gordon let his hair-tendrils carry him down the hall, that way he’d catch up with them faster-

No, no... Humans don’t have tendrils.

He’d just have to walk. 

Gordon dropped down and tried to get into the mindspace of a regular human again. Gordon Freeman, a guard who works at Black Mesa, Gordon Freeman-

He shot the guard who had witnessed him quickly.

Gordon Freeman. 

Meanwhile, the group was having some... fruitful conversation of their own.

“hey. why do they call you dr. g? ‘s g your last name?” Benrey asked, wobbling slightly from blood loss as Coomer helped him along.

“...No, G is not my... last name,” Dr. G said, adjusting his tie. 

“thennnn what is it?”

Dr. G sighed. He knew this was coming. “...Coolatta.”

“like the dunkin’ thing?”

“...Yes.”

Dr. G braced himself for the onslaught of questions, but Benrey simply gave him a thumbs up.

“cool.”  
“one day i’m gonna get my last name legally changed to calzone.”

  
For once, Dr. G was grateful for how aloof Benrey always was. 

“Benrey! I found a man here who says he can open the door for us!” Coomer said, pointing to an NPC.

They went further in, and Coomer jogged to catch up with Benrey.

“Now, Benrey, I didn’t want to say this out loud, but that man is ANNOYING! Benrey, do you have any idea what it’s like to have someone following you and not shutting up? Any idea at all?” He asked.

Benrey turned to Dr. Coomer and quietly booped him on the nose.

“...Oh. Right,” Coomer mumbled, blushing.

Benrey laughed. “nothing personal.”

“Oh, if I had taken it personal you would have had a punch to the gut!”

“It’s true!” Bubby chimed in. 

“Now now, let’s not fight,” Gordon said, rushing to catch up with them. “Dr. Coomer isn’t annoying ANYONE-“

Gordon got shot again. 

“How is he not dead?!” Bubby yelled, kicking Gordon’s body.

“Perhaps Black Mesa had clones of him, too!” Coomer guessed. 

They made it to the door, and the NPC started to ramble. Benrey went to work on his patented “zoning out and missing pretty much everything” strategy.

Okay, military control, Lambda Lab soon... Yep. Made sense to him. 

...Was Benrey really zoning out, or was someone zooming out FOR him...?

**“Mr. Benreyyyyy...”**

There was that noise again- the suction of sound, but not much else. 

The room felt... darker, than it was before, and the science team wasn’t moving. 

...Well, Dr. G seemed to be frozen more out of reverence. To what? Benrey didn’t know.

 **“Mr. Benrey... It’s good to see you and your friends are in such... good spirits,”** a powerful, booming voice addressed him. His face felt familiar, and Benrey could have sworn he had seen those glowing yellow eyes before, but as the man stepped closer, he still couldn’t put his finger on it.

**“I-“**

The man stopped, biting his lip. He seemed to shake off his embarrassment quickly, though. **“I’d offer you a drink, but... it appears you’re a little lacking in the... hands department.”**

Benrey kinda wanted to punch this guy in the face. 

The man stepped closer, circling around Benrey much like Gordon did earlier. **“I... realize now isn’t the best time for a... conversation, but I- I wanted to talk to you before you go any further.”**

Benrey furrowed his brow, staying silent... waiting for his next move.

The man stopped in front of Benrey, rusting his shoulder off.

**“The resonance cascade and its repercussions are... the beginning of a lot of events. Those events, you... don’t know how grand they are.”**

**“You’ve already faced impossible odds, and your prospects going forward will only grow... slimmer and slimmer.”**

**“...There are some who’d say that surrender is your only choice at this point, but... we have an interest in seeing you succeed, Mr. Benrey.”**

We?

**“Which is why I’ll continue to offer my support... as well as my associates. But you’re the one who has to survive in the end.”**

**“...We’ll talk again soon, but until then... Good luck.”**

The man looked like he wanted to say something else, and was weighing it back and forth in his mind. It seems he decided to just spit it out, as Benrey got a sheet of paper quickly shoved into his chest.

The man’s demeanour changed entirely, and the deeper, resonating voice he had been putting on had started to squeak.

**“Also, um... If you see my dog, Sunkist, please tell me. She, um, she ran away... She got lost... ‘n I miss her... Okay bye.”**

The man vanished, and it felt like reality was coming back to Benrey. He looked over at Dr. G, who was turned like he was having a conversation with someone. 

When did that happen.

Benrey looked down at the flyer he was holding.

“LOST DOG-

Responds to the name ‘Sunkist’ or ‘The Perfect Dog’, might be stuck between a wall???

Reward: A can of Dr. Pepper and a SHUTTERSHOCK SUBSCRIPTION!!!

Please contact Tommy Coolatta if you find her.  
PLACE: you know where  
TIME: you know when”

So what Benrey saw WAS real, then.

He decided not to bring up to Dr. G that he and this world-bending figure had the same last name.

Not yet, anyways.

“Look, Benrey! A revolving door- HELP ME, BENREY!” Bubby shouted, getting stuck in the door like canned sardines.

“DON’T WORRY, I’LL HELP!” Shouted Gordon, who refused to stay dead. He smashed through the glass of the revolving doors.

“...heeey, gordo had a GOOD idea for once,” Benrey said, breaking the other glass panels of the door. 

The science team, having defeated their lamest puzzle yet, moved past the broken revolving doors, to another outside segment of Black Mesa.

The beginning was calm... but only the beginning. As soon as Benrey pressed a button to open a metal door, they were getting shot at.

“okay team. let’s do this. LEROOOOOOOOOY JEEEEENKINS,” Benrey yelled, clipping the mic.

“WHO THE HELL IS LEROY?!” Gordon yelled, chasing after Benrey and promptly getting shot by the soldiers. 

...Maybe. Dr. G was looking awfully suspicious about that shot.

“ONWAAAARD!” Bubby yelled, then immediately yelled “RETREEEEEAT!”

“whaaat, little baby bubby worried about some weakass soldiers-“ Benrey got cut off by the deafening sound of an apache helicopter. “ohh.”

“can you stop please?” Benrey said to the helicopter, considering he couldn’t do much else to help. Luckily, the rest of the science team was already set with the heavy artillery, and blasting away. 

The helicopter went down quickly in a blaze of glory.

“WE GOT HIM!” Coomer shouted, fist-bumping with Bubby.

“DON’T FUCK WITH THE SCIENCE TEAM!” Bubby uttered like a war cry.

“thank you so much,” Benrey said flatly, enjoying the carnage.

It seemed with the downing of the helicopter, Benrey had to think up their next goal. His eyes darted to the river on one side, and the empty cliff on the other.

“well boys... we’re breaking a dam to-day,” Benrey said with a smirk.

“Damn,” Bubby muttered. 

Benrey dove into the water, quickly avoiding the monsters that were swimming in there (with... minimal internal cussing.) He climbed the ladder, and got up to the turbine control. He switched the button, and popped out of the hut, giving a thumbs up to the science team on land.

“Great! Now all you need to do is swim under those dangerous turbines and you should be fine! And not dead!” Bubby said encouragingly.

“that does not sound promising,” Benrey replied.

“Nothing ever does!”

Benrey sighed, preparing to dive for the second time. He dove down into the water, dodging the beast for a second time as he gave the valve a good, hard, spin. Benrey emerged on the other side, only to hear...

Singing.

Looks like Gordon was back again.

His song this time wasn’t just a string of annoyed opera notes, or a buzzing, it sounded like... notes in succession.  
A song... A real, actual song.  
Against his better judgement... Benrey had to admit it was beautiful. 

“yoooo. doctors. get down here,” Benrey called up to the dam, as Dr. Coomer cannonballed off the edge of it.

Dr. G wound up down there, too. Benrey knew he had just been waiting for him to look away. 

“There’s nothing more refreshing than a dip through sewage waste water,” Bubby said cheerfully, as they floated down the bank.

“This is just like a water park!” Coomer exclaimed.

“yeahh... action park,” Benrey said with a grunt. 

“What’s Action Park?” Coomer asked, getting out of the water.

“it’s where you go into a looping water slide and then you die,” Benrey answered bluntly.

“Ooh! Let’s go there after we’re done here. I’m sure I can find a prototype or two to sacrifice to the Slide,” Bubby said cheerfully.

“mhm.”

The group climbed into a pipe, and the uneasy, red lighting wasn’t exactly doing wonders for Benrey’s psyche, but he wasn’t in any mood to complain.

Gordon squished himself beside Benrey, and Benrey let out a grunt. He was waiting for the others to kill him, but...

Well, he assumed they got tired of trying.

Gordon looked away. Then he looked back at Benrey, and spat out a few blue orbs. Benrey took it in, sighing. 

He felt better already. 

“yeah man. whatever. i ate your balls. now what.”

“Excuse me?” Coomer said from behind.

“In PUBLIC, you two?!” Bubby scoffed. 

“sorry did you need something you homophobes?” Benrey said, looking behind him.

“I’m gay, you idiot!” Bubby yelled.

The peace and quiet of the Red Pipe Adventure was quickly coming to an end- even now, as they were approaching the exit, Benrey could hear the engine of a second helicopter.

He groaned. 

The science team tumbled out of the pipe onto some sand, and Benrey whistled, pointing up at the helicopter.

“y’know maybe i should learn a cheer. at least then i’ll be better moral support,” He muttered, watching the team take aim once again and sitting near a cactus, deciding to poke his hand against the needles. Just for fun.

“I think you’d make a wonderful cheerleader, Benrey!” Coomer yelled, trying to hit the helicopter as best he could.

“aww. you’re just saying thaaaat”, Benrey said with a false sense of humility.

“I... don’t think this is working!” Bubby yelled, as the cactus got destroyed.

“well no duh, look. cactus just died,” Benrey said sadly. 

“Aaaaaaa~”

Benrey looked over at Gordon with a flinch. “whuzza?”

Gordon gave Benrey a sharp stare. “Blue to green means it’s time to be mean.”

The helicopter promptly exploded.

Gordon smirked.

With a shudder, Benrey decided not to address Gordon’s actions as he climbed down the grate to their next destination.

Which, evidently, was the worst idea Benrey has had all day.

Because what he saw next... was beyond words.

(Please feel free to start playing dramatic music as you read this part. I recommend Mozart’s Reqiuem or One-Winged Angel.)

(Or anything from the soundtrack of Rugrats: Search For Reptar because that’d be pretty funny.)

As Benrey tiptoed onto the cliff edge to walk on it, he rounded the corner and saw the very being of his nightmares.

The map... Had glitched.

And with it, it birthed a giant, spinning, LOUD heap of helicopters that resembled a Biblical angel more than a vehicle. 

“OH MY GOD WE NEED TO KILL THIS,” Benrey yelled, as rockets zoomed past him, only to get consumed in the Heap.

“WE HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE!” Coomer yelled in a panic.

“Benrey, we better fucking move right now!” Bubby added on to the chaos.

Benrey clambered onto the ladder like a depraved animal, trying to ignore the Hellish Noise. Once he got to the top, he realized the noise was... No longer there. It appeared the hubris that caused the Heap to even Be, caused its own downfall.

“thank youuuu god for that,” Benrey said, falling flat on his face.

“Benrey... if I had to talk to a God, I’d say that wasn’t in his plan,” Coomer said gently.

“so what was that even?” Benrey said with a groan, getting up.

“I think.. that was all the funding the government could muster,” Coomer said.

“Well, they fucked up!” Bubby shouted from further ahead. 

The group ventured on past the cliffs, and after a long while of trekking, they landed in a vat of blue shit.

“yo what IS this? drink? drink for benrey?” Benrey asked.

“Why, yes... it is. This is... Powerade. A sign that we must be... close to the Mixology Department. Which is rather... good news,” Dr. G said, as Benrey whooped and hollered, guzzling himself with Powerade.

“I could drink SODA forever... but I won’t. Because I hate Powerade,” Bubby said, leaning on the container’s wall.

“God, Benrey, could you not be a fuckin’ slob for just one minute?” Gordon said with disgust.

“talk to the hand,” Benrey said, holding up his stump. “oh WAIT. you CAN’T.”

“I SAID I WAS SORRY!”

“kiss it better. you won’t.”

Gordon sighed, puckering up and kissing Benrey’s stump.

“woahhhh that’s a bit gay,” Benrey said, knocking him in the face with it before he could even reach. 

“OW! Fuck off, Benrey!” Gordon snarled.

“Gordon, you’ll just have to kiss Benrey AFTER we leave!” Bubby said crossly.

“You’ll just have to kiss Benrey AFTER the test,” Coomer agreed.

“save the lovin’ for later,” Benrey said with a snicker as Gordon blushed bright red.

Some things never change. 

The science team continued on, unfortunately needing to wrassle with some more boot boys. Their latest trick in the ring? Tanks. Of course, it was a military staple, but Benrey found them annoying as hell and nothing pleased him more than punching the top off those things.

Another, less fun addition to the roster were the fucked-up manta ray ships, because air support was NOT exactly their strong suit at the moment.

And, Benrey’s personal “favourite”, when they encountered a guard who asked for help and Gordon shot him dead.

Classic Gordon. 

The day’s events were starting to come to a close, thanks to Coomer insisting he needed a nap.

“yeah, me too, man,” Benrey said, rubbing his eyes as they climbed up onto a roof. “gotta find a secure place though. y’know?”

“Well, how about this hole?” Bubby said from across the roof.

“Oh, I love hole!” Coomer yelled back.

“hole,” Benrey agreed, walking over to it.

He dropped into the hole, accidentally crushing a box or two, but that’s okay, because everyone else did too. 

“okayyyy, time for nap. everyone gonna take a nap. goodnight,” Benrey urged, as the player began to save and quit. 

“Goodnight, Benrey!” Bubby said, as he and Coomer huddled together and went to bed.

Dr. G soon followed as well, offering Benrey a curt nod.

Finally, there was Gordon.

“hey, listen, man... i don’t want you to go off and get me in trouble again, okay? so just stay here.”

Gordon smiled, as something else dropped down the hole with a clatter.

The skeleton rose up, bearing a nametag that just said “YOU”.

“Oh, don’t worry, Benrey...” Gordon said eerily. 

_“We’re not going anywhere.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOOOO!!! writing gordon’s return was a lot of fun because that’s DEFINITELY different from the original. i hope everyone enjoys the fact that gordon literally is only allowed in the group because he Cannot he Killed- and of course his doc ock hair moments!  
> and who could forget MORE TOMMY!!!!


	8. Act 4: Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You have to kill it.

The player had a few hours before they usually booted up Half-Life. 

Let’s play some TF2!

The player went to pick their main, Pyro- who WOULDN’T pick Pyro? They got a air poof.

The player went onto 2fort, getting ready to kick some ass for the blue team. They saw a Heavy and made quick work of him, then headed inside the shed. 

“Hello, Benrey! Nice weapon choice!”

What the fuck was Bubby doing there???

“None of this is real, is it?”

The player woke up.

Good... just a dream.

...Maybe they should play Half-Life a little bit earlier today. 

“Benrey? Benrey, are you alright?” Coomer asked, jostling Benrey awake. 

Benrey yawned, looking around at where they had woken up. Usually it was a different place than before, but this one was... really unfamiliar. 

“Hello, Benrey!” Bubby greeted. “Welcome back to the land of the living!”

“the birds are singing... isn’t it beautiful, “ Benrey said, reflex-quoting The Faces of Evil.

“Birds? Where? I don’t see any birds,” Gordon said, darting his head around to look. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“GOOD MORNINGGGG,” Benrey cut him off, sitting up quickly. This lurch apparently activated the lift they were all sitting on, and it started to descend with a creak.

As they got lower and lower, Benrey swore he could hear the clanking of metal hitting together. Were the mixologists giving cheers before they served up a Hand Regenerate Potion? 

“Ohhhhh, LET IT RIP, Ultimate Dragoon,” he heard someone shouting from below.

...Okay. 

The lift lurched to a halt, to reveal the source of the noise was one scientist, shooting Beyblades into an arena with what appeared to be a custom Beyblade launcher in the shape of a gun. 

“The BIT-BEASTS are ATTACKING... OHHHHH...”

“hey,” Benrey said, waving to get his attention.

The scientist looked up. “Salut... qu’est-ce que vous faisez-la? Allez ici,” he called out in French.

“so what’s your deal?” Benrey asked, getting up to watch the Beyblades as the rest of the science team dispersed.

“My name is.. Forzen. I’m the only one on... Team Nice,” Forzen said, flashing a toothy grin.

“oh they sound nice.”

“They do.”

“so, uh... you know where the mixology department is?”

Forzen frowned, putting a hand to his chin. “Um... what? I don’t know what that is, man.”

Dr. G cleared his throat. “The... mixology department. It is... supposed to be here. It... replaced the cybernetics department.”

Forzen’s face lit up. “Oh, hey! I’m in charge of the cybernetics department!”

“No, that’s- No-“

Dr. G rubbed his temples.  
“Did... nobody tell you they shut down the cybernetics department...?”

Forzen tapped his fingers together. “They never tell me anything down here, man. I just wanna graduate.”

He was about to go sulk in the corner, when Benrey caught his eye.

“Hey... what happened to your arm?”

“soldiers cut it off,” Benrey grunted. “wanted to get it fixed with some bone healing juice... buttttttt...”

“No way!” Forzen cut him off. “That’s QUITTER talk. Those phonies in mixology can’t help you anyways. I’m gonna get you a GAMER ARM.”

Benrey’s eyes sparkled, in a way that could only mean one kindred soul just connected with another.

“yo, you like... you like video games?”

Forzen nodded. “I get ALL my video game updates from Chris Bores Irate Gamer. Who is NOT a rip-off of AVGN.”

“niiiice,” Benrey said excitedly.

“But before we can play games and spin some Beyblades... I gotta, uh, fix that hand of yours. Lemme see what I got.”

Forzen turned around to a large, industrial crate, digging through it like he was dumpster diving. 

“Cos I’ve been working on some top secret stuffff... But I guess it’s not top secret anymore. Since I’m the last guy left,” Forzen said from inside the crate with a laugh. “But I’m pretty sure it’ll fix your problem.”

“Hey, you want Mountain Dew green or Hardcore Gamer red?” He asked.

“hardcore gamer red. cos i’m a hardcore gamer,” Benrey said with a smirk. 

“No soda?” Coomer said disappointedly.

“there’s only so much baja i can blast, coomer,” Benrey replied, patting his shoulder. 

“AHA!” Forzen yelled, emerging from his big crate of toys. He held something in the air enthusiastically- something about the size of an arm, that had a glowing red light system on the inside.

It really did look like a condensed version of a gamer chair.

“Okay, so, uh... This might sting a bit. But after that it’ll be better,” Forzen said, walking over to Benrey. “Gimme your arm?”

Benrey held it to himself protectively.

“He’s helping you grow your arm back, man! Just do it!” Gordon yelled from Forzen’s own gaming chair.

“fuck off, gordon,” Benrey muttered, shoving his stump in Forzen’s direction and squeezing his eyes shut.

A rocket of pain shot up his right arm as the armgun whirred to life, attaching itself to his stump. It was pressed there for a long time, and every minute it was there it felt like it hurt more, despite the science team cheering for him.

Then, he felt his cheek getting poked by something.

Benrey cracked his eyes open to see what it was, only to see Forzen holding out a lollipop to him.

“whuh?”

“You did a good job, so you’re getting a lollipop,” Forzen said.

Benrey grabbed it slowly, looking down at his right arm- it felt like the gun had always been a part of it. Maybe Forzen really WAS right- and cybernetics could save the day after all.

“So, there’s a Beyblade launcher over here, a cupholder over here, and a phone stand if you ever wanna watch gaming videos,” Forzen said, pointing to the different parts of the gun that folded and unfolded like a Swiss army knife. 

“Oh! Oh! Benrey, try shooting it!” Bubby cheered.

“got it. here goes nuttin’,” Benrey huffed, aiming at the wall and filling it full of holes.   
“niiiiice.”

“Yep. Think you’re good to go. Other than, uhhh... Oh yeah.”   
“PRESS ALL BUTTONS TO UNLOCK DEVIL GUN MODE!”

Benrey stared at Forzen for a moment in silence.

“...like doom?”

“Like Doom.”

“Anyways, Mr. Ben-rey, with this.. New arm, we should be able to head to the Lambda Lab with... little more delay, hm...?” Dr. G piped up.

“Oh, the Lambda Lab? Sounds fun. I wanna come,” Forzen said, leaning on Benrey’s shoulder.

“yeah man. we’ll make it a party. gamer party.”

“GAMER PARTYYY!” Forzen cheered.

Then, there was a beeping. Forzen looked at his watch nervously.

“Oh, shoot.”

“whaaat, man?” Benrey said sadly. “what’s wrong?”

“I am needed...” Forzen clenched his fists as he looked dramatically into the distance. “By Youtube.” 

“youtube...” Benrey repeated in awe.

“Okay, so... You can borrow the stuff from my lab, including my gamer pad, and you can use my Beyblades if you want, but not Lightning L-Drago, that one’s my favourite... Good luck,” Forzen said solemnly, getting on the lift and saluting as it went back up. 

“Ooh! Gentlemen, I believe Forzen has given us the liberty to borrow his Mystery Gadgets!” Coomer said excitedly, diving into his big crate. He pulled out a mysterious, space-looking gun, and immediately ran to test it. “Everyone, give me some space!”

Coomer promptly disappeared. 

“afk....” Benrey whispered in surprise.

“Goodbye, Dr. Coomer!” Bubby said happily. 

“so, um, guess coomer is gone. that’s bad-“

Coomer came back screaming.

“yo, coomer, you good, man?”

Coomer smiled. “Oh, heavens no. Absolutely not.” 

“cool.”

Meanwhile, Bubby was nearly singing Gordon’s face off.

“Augh- What the hell, man?!” Gordon shouted, patting his hair down.

“Sorry, misfired... You know how The Big One is,” Bubby said apologetically.

He then immediately singed Gordon again. 

“That one was also a misfire.”

“Alright, enough... toying around. The Lambda Lab will not... Reach itself,” Dr. G said, and with a nod, Benrey headed down the hall, the science team following. 

Eventually, they reached the outside, only to be greeted by more manta rays.

“Look out, Benrey! An air strike!” Bubby cried out.

“ohhhhh... call of duty air striiike.... we got a kill streak, haha-“ Benrey realized he could actually help now that he had a gun arm. “oh. whoops.”

He dashed across the battlefield with the rest of the team, which eventually turned out to be a larger outdoor segment complete with all the military staples- tanks, explosions, and everyone’s favourite- mowing down some boot boys. 

Eventually, they found a radio, and before Coomer blew it up, Benrey could make out a voice repeating “Airplane. Airplane. Bathroom.”

“y’know if that was a secret message then it was kinda lame,” Benrey said, as they continued. “pfft... bathroom.”

“Now, Benrey, I know how to speak code, so I’ll keep it brief. In short? The military wants to fuck us up with bombs,” Bubby informed him.

“but...bathroom? whuzzat mean?” Benrey asked.

“The bathroom, obviously!” Coomer answered.

“nooooo... we need those.”

The group emerged near... Benrey’s worst enemy. Another ladder.

And Benrey’s least tolerable nuisance- Gordon’s security vest- was pressed against his back again.

“What are you waiting for, huh? Go,” Gordon said.

“just gimme a sec i’m trying to-“

“GO!”

“fiiine.” Benrey rolled his eyes, and leapt to the ladder, immediately smacking his face on it and falling onto the ground.

“Wow, even with your hand back you’re hopeless at ladders,” Gordon sneered, dropping down.

Benrey hit him with his gun and sent him flying. 

The group ventured on for a while, nothing REALLY interesting of note happening, especially considering Gordon hadn’t gotten in his grill for a while.

“Benrey...!” Coomer cried, when they were inside the warehouse. “Something’s... fucked up with me!”

Benrey looked at him silently as Coomer started emitting weird dialup tones. He then clipped across the map.

“yeah well maybe try drinking some water and it’ll be better,” Benrey muttered, not wanting to draw attention to it. 

The group moved forward, and stopped at a vent. For once, it wasn’t Benrey taking the lead- this time, Gordon squeezed in first.

Which, of course, Benrey had to take advantage of.

“oooh. liking the view from back here.”

“WHAT IS YOUR FUCKING PROBLEM?!”

*BURP*

“Benrey, look! Infants!” Bubby said excitedly, pointing ahead of him.

“oh yoooo... gordon take some. you’re gonna be a daaaad.”

“I’m already a dad, asshole!”

The two of them squabbled the rest of the way through the vents, as Bubby quietly grabbed one of the Infants. 

“I’ll call you Bubby 2,” he said gently.

The rest of the journey was about as chaotic as it usually was, with Gordon and Benrey bickering, Bubby distracted by the joys of parenting, and Coomer and Dr. G tag-teaming the enemies. 

One of the highlights was everyone nearly dying thanks to a soldier throwing a bomb in a pipe, but surprisingly enough, it didn’t work, and they were all still alive.

It was a close call, though.

“Aaaaaaa~” Gordon sang, walking circles around Benrey.

“thank you for the song,” Benrey muttered.

“No! Stop enjoying it! It means FUCK YOUUUUUUUU!!!” 

“maybe you should sweet voice yourself then man. you sound stressed.”

“I’m not stressed! I’m fine! Gordon Freeman is FINE.”

“Oh, boooooys! Guess who found a Caddyyyyyyy!” Coomer sang, and like kids being called to dinner both Gordon and Benrey ran to see.

  
“yo what the fuck man? why does bubby get the front seat?” Benrey groaned.

“Bubby 2 needs his fresh air,” Bubby said, stroking the weird alien baby he somehow hadn’t gotten rid of yet.

“My car, my rules, Benrey!” Coomer said, smiling at Bubby.

Benrey rolled his eyes, squeezing in at the middle seat. Dr. G took the left, and Gordon took the right.

“You gonna buckle up, Benrey? It’s not safe to be in a car without-“

“I’M GOINGGGG-UH.”

He buckled in, Gordon watching his every move, and Coomer-

Christ, Coomer GUNNED it. They went zipping through the parking lot.

“COOMER SLOW DOWNNNN,” Benrey yelled. “OR ELSE WE’RE GONNA BECOME GRAN FOR THE GAMECLAM.”

“I HAVE A NEED FOR SPEED THAT CAN’T BE SATIATED, BENREY!” Coomer said with an evil cackle, running over a guard.

“BUBBY 2, NO!-“

And just like that, the alien baby was lost to the wind, and Coomer’s ferocious rampage. 

He then immediately got stuck between two poles.

“this is- this is JUST like austin powers,” Benrey cackled. “YEAHHHHH baby!!!!!”

Eventually, Coomer got free with a raging squeal of wheels on asphalt.

“Wait, wait, Dr. Coomer! DR. COOMER THIS IS THE WAY WE CAME-“ Gordon’s frantic yelling was drowned out by Benrey doing a horrible valley girl impression.

“ROAD TRIIIIP! ROAAAAAD TRIIIP!”

He fell over laughing, resting on Gordon’s shoulder.

Gordon sighed. “Road trip... I guess...”

“Roshriiiiiiip~”

“I don’t even know what you’re saying anymore.”

“we’re going to the MOOOOOOON,” Benrey giggled, getting bounced around as Coomer tried his damndest to fit through a smaller parkway.

The joyous laughter was soon interrupted by Benrey nearly flying out of his seat.

They had... stopped, apparently!

“Gentlemen, I don’t mean to be rude, but I think this thing’s about to blow!” Coomer yelled, quickly unbuckling and dragging Bubby with him. Everyone else soon followed- except Gordon. 

“Uh, guys?” Gordon looked at the others, who just looked like they were expecting something.

“Gordon... you do know cars explode, right?” Coomer said.

“I’m TRYING to get out!” Gordon yelled back, clawing at the outside door.

The car exploded, sending Gordon ragdolling five feet into the air.

He landed right in front of the group, and stood up immediately to see Benrey chuckling.

“This fucker must have put glue on my seat or something!” Gordon yelled, looking at the others for support.

They were also laughing. Even Dr. G was trying to stifle a chuckle!

“Oh, I see how it is. I cut a guy’s arm off ONCE and now suddenly I’M the bad guy?”

“it was just a prank, brooo. you need to calm down.”

“Calm down, he says,” Gordon muttered.

“One of Benrey’s CLASSIC pranks!” Bubby laughed, as they headed to their next destination.

It was a puzzle. Benrey knew that. But what puzzle was it, exactly...? He wasn’t worrying too much about it, anyways. It looked like Coomer and Bubby had it handled.

Gordon was standing on top of the device, studying it curiously. “Hey... what does this thing do?”

“It-“ Coomer was cut off VERY quickly by Benrey leaning on it with a mischievous smirk. “it’s scanning your feet. this is FOOTSCANNER HD.”

“...What??”

“we’re gonna have high res pics of your FEET, BROOO.”

“I don’t want anyone- I don’t want YOU having scans of my feet! That’s a privacy violation! You privacy-violating little-“

“gordon FEETman,” Benrey said, laughing so hard he fell onto the side of the puzzle.

“Can you two shut up for a second?” Coomer asked nicely.

“Well- Tell BENREY to shut up then!” Gordon shouted, gesturing to the laughing heap on the floor that was Benrey.

“no YOU shut up!”

Coomer managed to finish the puzzle, luckily... no thanks to Gordon and Benrey. 

They journeyed on to what looked like a normal tunnel... Yes, normal until it started collapsing. 

“YOLO,” Benrey yelled, running further in on impulse. 

“YOU’RE ALL IDIOTS!” Gordon screamed, chasing after them like a concerned yet vicious mother goose. 

Luckily for Gordon’s blood pressure, the collapsing tunnel segment didn’t last long, and eventually, they were going back further underground- Of course, that came with dealing with the damn barnacles again, but hey.

Making it past the barnacles, they took an elevator. Dr. G looked at his watch as it descended.

“I certainly hope there are fewer... delays, in the future. I still have an... event I would like to get to... once this is all over,” he said.

“huh? whuzzat?”

“That is.. on a need-to-know basis, Mr. Ben-rey.”

“laaaaame.”

The elevator stopped, and the group came face to face with more green slime.

“Oh, no... More green slime! I’m terribly allergic... If only a handsome scientist would carry me...!” Coomer said, sinking dramatically onto the wall.

Bubby rolled his eyes, scooping him up. 

They made their way across the sludge, making a quick pit stop.

“yo. coomer. can you hack this??”

Coomer studied it as he got put down by Bubby. “Benrey, I don’t know what the fuck this is!”

After a short escapade through a room with a tank (which Bubby called a J. J. Abrams for whatever reason), the group rounded the corner to a hallway.

A mysterious noise echoed through the halls, that sounded like-

“Why is there dog noises?” Gordon asked, scratching his head. 

“Dog...?” Dr. G’s eyes lit up with recognition. “I would... know those barks anywhere.”

“man you guys are acting weird. why are you acting weird?” Benrey asked, as they approached a large door.

It slid open, to reveal...!

Another door.

Being anticlimactic aside, the second door opened to reveal... 

(Is that a fucking JPEG?)

The group rushed in, only to notice the... JPEG of a dog was surrounded by turrets. Turrets that very quickly aimed at the group, as well.

The room appeared to be deserted...

Suddenly, from behind a box, popped a forearm.

The forearm... of an HEV suit.

“Benrey, it’s me! Your clone! You’ve gotta help me! This homicidal dog has taken me hostage!”

Benrey blinked once or twice, breaking into a nervous sweat upon seeing the arm that was clearly HIS- but then he cleared his throat. 

“yo, i don’t sound like that. that’s a pretty bad impression.”

“Awww,” the arm flopped down, and out from behind the boxes popped a very familiar masked soldier- Darnold. “I thought I could’ve fooled ya. You’re too smart for that, huh!” 

“What... are you doing with my son’s dog...” Dr. G said, tightening his grip on his coat.

“Ahh, so YOU’RE the dad Mr. Coolatta told me all about! I did say he and I talked once or twice, didn’t I? And, y’know, he said he was sooo nervous, he almost wanted to bring Sunkist with him. And I said, who’s Sunkist? And he told me alll about her.”

Darnold hopped off the box, crossing in front of the team to lift his mask off. “Y’know, I like Mr. Coolatta and all. But I’m the last one! The last soldier left, thanks to my idiotic coworkers... so it’s only fair for me to take the dog hostage, right?”

“Tch...” Dr. G gave him an unimpressed look. “Sunkist, come here,” he said, beckoning the dog towards him. 

Darnold furrowed his brow and blew a whistle. Benrey was confused as to why it made no noise, but he looked around- both Sunkist and Gordon seemed to be flinching in pain. 

“Come on, old man. Don’t be mean like that. I didn’t shoot her this time for that, but if you don’t negotiate with me, I just might!” Darnold said, swinging the whistle by its loop.

“WHATEVER IT IS, WE’LL DO IT,” Gordon whined. “JUST PUT THAT DAMN THING AWAY!”

“Oh, what, this dog whistle?” Darnold laughed, blowing into it again as Gordon whined, plugging his ears. 

“what do you even want, man?” Benrey asked, folding his arms.

“Well... Ideally, I’d throw a special death bomb, and kill you all, and get promoted, but... I crave a boon,” Darnold said, tapping a finger to his chin.

“what ‘boon’?”

“Look, it’s not hard. I give you the dog back... you don’t tell anyone else I’m here. Additionally! I want you... to take down Big Soda.”

“big... soda?” Benrey asked curiously.

“The fruit of the vine... of sin and corruption. Coke of Cola.”  
“For years, it’s weighed us Dr. Pepper fans down! Always being the INFERIOR red soda!”

“I always thought it was more of a burgundy,” Coomer added.

“THE PUBLIC CAN’T SEE BURGUNDY!” Darnold yelled.  
He cleared his throat. “...But that’s all I ask. To help dismantle the oppressive establishment that is the big C.”

Everyone looked at eachother, then shrugged. 

“yeah alright. i only drink gamer fuel anyways.”

“Then we have ourselves... a deal,” Darnold said with a grin, shaking Benrey’s gun arm. 

The turrets silently went off, and with an ethereal BOOF, Sunkist evaporated into the aether- presumably to find her owner. 

“That was... surprisingly easy,” Bubby muttered. “I thought you might have tried to fight us or something.”

Darnold stuck his arms up in the air with a shrug. “Hey, i’m a smart guy. When you’re the last one in the military, you don’t need to fight for the top spot anymore. Just... consider yourselves killed for now and I’ll pretend I never saw you. That sound good?”

Benrey smirked. “yeah... catch you on the flipside, doctor pepper.”

Darnold laughed and yanked his gas mask down, throwing one final smoke bomb to escape.

“Did Youtube need him, too...?” Gordon said curiously, looking around the now-empty area.

“man, fuck youtube. cos guys. look. we maaaaade it,” Benrey said, gesturing to the giant LAMBDA COMPLEX sign near the far wall. 

“Benrey! We’re zero hours away from the Lambda Lab!” Bubby cheered. 

The group slid down the lift, entering the Lambda Lab for real.

“wait... that asshole darnold took my arm with him!” Benrey realized.

“BENREY NOW’S NOT THE FUCKING TIME THERE ARE ASSASINS,” Gordon yelled, running past him to take cover.

“oh shit more boobs??” Benrey whispered, hiding behind a box of his own. 

“BOIOIOIOIOING,” Bubby yelled. 

Eventually, the hotted boobs were taken out by Coomer’s quick sharpshooting, and he and Benrey high-fived. 

“Aren’t you guys being a bit- I don’t know, crass...?” Gordon asked.

“Gordon, titty huge boob fuck,” Coomer said, matter-of-factly.

“...I’m not even gonna bother asking anymore,” Gordon said in defeat as he walked away. 

The group made their way to a closed door, and before an NPC could finish telling Benrey about the teleportation labs (but luckily, AFTER he opened the door), Gordon shot him through the chest.

He turned to Benrey, laughing nervously- it was pretty scary, all things considered, with the laughter so clearly being forced, the gun still smoking, and the blood splattered all over his face.

“He’s crazy, Benrey. Don’t listen to him. In fact, I think we’re going the wrong way!”

“ohhh, if gordon feetman thinks it’s wrong then i think we’re going the RIGHT way,” Benrey said, crouching past Gordon into the next room.

“YOU’RE NOT AUTHORIZED TO BE IN THERE! COME BACK!”  
And just like that, the game of cat and mouse started again.

Benrey ventured through the abandoned halls of the Lambda Lab, constantly getting blocked by Gordon. 

“Listen, man-“

He got pushed aside.

“I know we’ve had our differences in the past.”

He got thrown into some water. 

“And I may have been a bit... UNFAIR to you.” 

He got tripped. 

“But I really think... from the bottom of my human heart...” 

He got kicked aside.

“That we need to turn around.”

He got punched aside.

“Let’s turn around, Benrey.”

Gordon didn’t move.

“It’s not safe here.”

Neither did Benrey.

“Benrey.”

Gordon’s feet were lifting ever-so-gently off the ground, and his hair was starting to creep up to places that gravity could not have possibly willed it to be. 

_**“Turn around.”** _

A bullet soared across the room, the sound causing both Gordon and Benrey to duck.

“Sorry, gentlemen! Misfired!” Coomer said apologetically. “Now let’s get a move on!”

He gave Benrey a reassuring wink.

Benrey gave him a thumbs up in response... a silent show of gratitude.

They ventured further in, climbing a ladder back upstairs- the only exciting part about that being that Dr. G seemed particularly insistent on getting on between Gordon and Benrey.

Gordon climbed inside what seemed to be a security kiosk, and Benrey just barely caught sight of what appeared to be Gordon slamming the guard into the control panel. 

Benrey went up to the window, staring at Gordon.

“Oh no! The guard died! It must be dangerous here. We should go back,” Gordon said with a smile that didn’t quite meet his eyes.

“...”

Benrey wasn’t gonna let Gordon off THAT easy.

“what do you wanna order sirrr?”

“...What?”

“we have three big mac and, four FREESH FRIES foryou.”

“...nooot anymore though.”

Gordon looked genuinely confused.

Yeah, that was good enough for now.

“whopper,” he said with a grin finality and moved on. 

They entered the teleportation lab, and Benrey rapped his gun arm with excitement. “things are getting spookyyyyyy.”

“Now, Benrey, the important thing here is to not fuck it up. Even you could do that,” Bubby said, patting him on the shoulder.

“wowww, GREAT pep talk,” Benrey snorted, but was grateful for Bubby’s little show of appreciation. He hopped into the first teleporter, only to land at the complete bottom of the next area.

“RUN FOR IT, BENREY!” Coomer shouted from above, nearly falling over the ledge. “YOU’RE GONNA GET CRUSHED!”

Benrey bolted, ending up back where he was. “no platinum relic for benrey... bummer.” He waltzed in the teleporter to try again, and after a few shots, he made it to the end.

“yo,” Benrey said, the door opening to the exit area. “did they keep anything back here? cos it was empty but it felt like i shoulda saw something.”

“I, er... Kinda freed all the prototypes,” Bubby said sheepishly. “The ones down here were the REALLY fucked up ones.”

“oh, oh, like that one bubby that looked like he was in a paper jam?” Benrey asked.

“Exactly! You learn so quickly.”

The group walked up to a glass door, surprised to see a bunch of NPCs.

“We thought you’d never make it!” One said, opening the door.

Oh, boy.

Looks like Benrey would have to make sure nobody killed the lore dump. 

“We suspect that there is an IMMENSE portal over there, created by the intense concentration of a single, powerful being.”

Gordon seemed to stop in his tracks, hand rested firmly on his gun holster.

“...We haven’t been able to trace the being’s location yet as of now, but if it truly is that powerful, then it’s most likely on Xen. You have to find it... and kill it. Or else there won’t be much to come back to,” the scientist said.

A single, powerful being, huh... Benrey couldn’t even begin to fathom what that alien must look like.

It must be huge, for sure... maybe a bit ugly?

Or maybe... so unbearably handsome he’d have no choice but to reenact The Shape Of Water with it?

Suddenly, there was a blue flash. 

“We thought you’d never make it!” said the scientist.

“no no stop. stooop. i’ve already heard this. what the hell just happened??” Benrey said, walking away as the scientist was still talking.

“See? I told you this was dangerous, Benrey. You have no idea what that was. ...And neither do I! I’m sure we can just leave the aliens here, and they’ll all just... die naturally. Not our problem, right?” Gordon asked.

He got flung across the room by Benrey’s gun arm.

Benrey walked away from the rest of the group, looking solely to head to the reactor, only to be interrupted.

Not by Gordon, not by an NPC... but by the one entity that was truly shrouded in mystery.

**“Mr. Benreyyyyy...”**

The world stopped, and out of the void came Mr. Coolatta, that serene smile on his face like last time.

**“It’s good to see you haven’t died, Mr. Benrey...”**

**“You’re nearing the end of your journey, my friend, and I thought it’d be best to-“**

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Gordon just moved.

Gordon just fucking MOVED.

How is he moving?? How is he SPEAKING??

 **“Ummm... Talking to Mr. Benrey?”** The familiar nervous squeak in Mr. Coolatta’s voice began to inch back.

“No. No- I won’t allow it. I know what a Black Mesa employee looks like, PAL, and I know what YOU are- and what you aren’t.”

**“That’s- that’s great, Mr. Freeman, I’m proud of you, but, um, I’m trying to talk to Mr. Benrey and-“**

“No! I’m not letting you talk to him! You’ll put IDEAS in his head! He’s gonna get himself killed!”

**“I know what you’re doing, Mr. Freeman! It won’t work! Please stop trying, it- he’s gonna make it no matter what you do...”**

**“Mr. Benrey, this next leg of your journey is-“**

“La la la la la, I’m not listeniiiing!” Gordon shouted, drowning Mr. Coolatta out completely.

 **“...You’ll figure it out. I’m sorry,”** he mumbled, beginning to phase back into the unknown.

**“...And by the way, thank you for finding Sunkist, Mr. Benrey...! I missed her so much! I’ll get you your- your Shuttershock subscription soon...”**

“can you make it playstation plus instead?”

Mr. Coolatta nodded, and just like that, he was gone.

“gordon what kind of fucking hacks are you on, man?” Benrey asked as the world moved back to life.

“Oh, I could tell you... but it’s MUCH too dangerous here. Classified stuff.” Gordon leaned into Benrey’s face, walking forward so Benrey was forced to walk back. “You understand, right? I could totally tell you if we just went back where we came.”

**“Mr. Freeman.”**

Dr. G looked PISSED. 

Gordon backed off sheepishly.

“Look, don’t try to make ME the bad guy when you guys are trying to get yourselves killed,” he mumbled. “And then you’ll think ‘oh, oh, we should have listened to Gordon, our friend Gordon, he’s always right...’”

Dr. G patted Benrey on the shoulder and glided past him, urging Benrey and the team to get a move on. 

The portal reactor room was... oddly majestic, in a sense. It was everything they had fought so hard to reach, and it really did look just like a sci-fi film...

(Half-Life 1 graphics sure did know how to do scene design.)

The scientist up near the ceiling flipped on the switch, only for a short ‘Oh, dear!’ to come after it as an alien creature escaped from the portal.

“HOW MUCH MORE FUCKING PROOF DO YOU NEED??” Gordon yelled, waving his arms wildly at the alien beast. 

No matter how hard they shot at it, the beast didn’t seem to die- fortunately, that didn’t look like it was stopping the portal from opening.

“BENREY! IT’S READY!” Coomer yelled, pointing to the light show in the middle of the portal.

Benrey took off, before Gordon called out to him, stopping him one last time.

“Benrey...”

“If you go through that portal, you’re going to regret it.”

Benrey stared at Gordon, a courage in his eyes that hadn’t been there before.

“gordon, i regret everything i do.”

He leapt into the blinding light.

That was when Benrey left Earth...

That was when Gordon began to change. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHOS EXCITED FOR XEN GORDON??? i know i am!!! so... HOO boy. act 4 is long and it’s only about to get longer. my attention span went OUT the door for so much of this and honestly i thought it’d take longer but i got really excited once i made it to darnold that i just... BLASTED through it! i was a bit worried that darnold didn’t wanna fight in the end and that would be kinda lame, but i think darnold is more resourceful than forzen and would know he’d be fighting a losing battle! speaking of forzen, yay he’s finally here :) i have a soft spot for the guy. he’s my great big dumbass. anyways thank you guys so much for the continued support! you’re the ones who keep this fic going!!!


	9. The Final Part

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You have to go back.

When Benrey awoke, it was very clear to him that he wasn’t on Earth anymore.

No, he was far, far away, off in the distant reaches of space... On an island that floated lazily around another planet in orbit. 

“blue,” Benrey said quietly. That was all he could muster at the moment, because what he saw was that this new sky- this new space around what he presumed to be Xen, was very, very, blue.

Or was it more of a turquoise?

Benrey shook his head, trying to rattle off more complete sentences. “yo, um... role call. we all here? bubby?”

“Hello, Benrey!” Bubby said with a wave, sitting near the edge of the island.

“doc?”

Dr. G nodded silently.

“i think coomer got, um. lost.”

Benrey stopped, brushing some hair behind his ear. He scanned their island, and all the ones near it.

He... was nowhere to be seen.

“where’s gordon?”

A deafening sound filled the air- It wasn’t like Mr. Coolatta’s, where the noise came from a LACK of noise, but rather, it felt like the universe itself was screaming in agony as someone forced their way in.

The sound faded, and there, floating in space, was a creature- a huge, domineering creature that stared down at the group as he loomed over them.

“yo what the fuck?!” Benrey shouted, falling back on himself as he crawled as far away as he could from him.

The creature frowned. “What’s the matter, Benrey? Don’t you recognize me?”

“i know you’re gordon, gordon, but why you so big, man?” Benrey asked.

“Heh... I guess I can’t blame you for being so confused. I did a pretty great job blending in as a human,” Gordon said with a booming chuckle that shook the island.

“nehhh... not really,” Benrey muttered.

“It was perfect and you know it!” Gordon shouted, causing the island to shake even more.

He put a hand over his mouth and took a second to compose himself. “Man, I’m sorry. I’m being so rude right now, aren’t I? Here. Allow me to slip into something more... _ comfortable _ ,” Gordon said. He reached towards his elastic, closing his eyes, and took it out with a dramatic flourish. His hair got carried by the tug of the elastic, flying out, and then it just... 

Stayed there. 

Like his hair had a mind of its own, it moved sporadically, like tendrils. Gordon smiled, opening his eyes. They were different than before- flashing colours that Benrey was sure corresponded to Gordon’s Sweet Voice.

Gordon began to speak quietly, like the voice a mother would use to her child who couldn’t sleep.

“Benreyyyyy.~”

“I tooold you you’d regret itttttt.~”

“...”

Benrey puckered his lips.

“wanna kiss?”

“-What??” Gordon groaned, putting his hands on his temples. “DUUUUDE. Can you PLEASE just take this seriously for ONCE?!”

“i AM serious, man. pucker up. benrey want kiss.”

Gordon’s tendrils wouldn’t stop worming around, even moving FASTER now that Benrey had pissed him off.

“Benrey...” Bubby gulped. “This is the only time you’ll ever hear me admit this, but... I’m scared.”

“okay, listen. you gotta listen. i’m gonna- i’m gonna distract him, you guys gotta speedrun this,” Benrey whispered to the other two scientists on the island. They both nodded, as Benrey turned back to Gordon.

“so. it’s been a few seconds and still no kiss. what’s wrong with you, man?”

Gordon’s eyes snapped back open as one of his tendrils shot out and tried to grab Benrey, only narrowly missing thanks to the island being tipped. Benrey took that opportunity to run for it, using Xen’s lower gravity to his advantage. 

“GET BACK HERE, BENREY!” Gordon growled. “YOU CAN RUN, BUT YOU CAN’T HIDE!”

“i’m doing both those things right now actually,” Benrey yelled back, landing on a second island. 

“y’know what, man? i think you’re the one. the scientist guy, he was talking and stuff about the one really powerful alien guy? i think that’s you,” Benrey huffed, regaining his balance.

Gordon floated around the island like a shark circling its prey, his form so massive that a gust of wind came from wherever he went. “I think you’re wrong.”

“You’re ALWAYS wrong, Benrey. You were in the wrong place, at the wrong time... made the wrong decision to go through the wrong portal.. messed with the wrong guard.” 

“maybe you just need a hug, man. you sound cranky.” Benrey leapt to the next island, but Gordon followed him not soon after. He made the decision to make the long jump to a larger section of island, hiding behind a pillar. 

“Oh, come on, Benrey, you’re going to have to try a little bit harder than that. I can see you through the pillar,” Gordon said smugly.

“how??” Benrey yelled, as Gordon came around to his side.

Gordon smiled.

“You said it yourself.”

“I’m not human, remember?”

One of Gordon’s tendrils shot out again, slamming into the pillar and ripping it off the island. Dust went everywhere, and Benrey was forced to book it again as Gordon slammed the broken pillar down on the island in an attempt to squish him like a bug.

Barely making it onto another island, Benrey laughed. “oh yeah. i knew that the second i saw your FEET PICS, mister... gordon feetmannnnnnn...”

**_“I’M NOT GORDON FEETMAN!”_ ** Gordon yelled, a tendril cracking like a whip and grabbing Benrey by the waist, dragging him off the small island and dangling him upside-down in front of Gordon’s face.

“What? No quips to make this time? Not so SARCASTIC when you’re about to die, huh?” Gordon taunted, wiggling Benrey from side to side.

“nah man. you’re just so ugly that my mind went blank.”

Gordon’s eyes flashed red, and his vice grip on Benrey only grew tighter. Benrey choked out in protest, trying to get his arms free, but he felt like he was immobilized, both by fear and by asphyxiation.

Then, it was all over- 

Someone had shot a large rocket at Gordon, chopping the tendril clean off- To which Gordon hissed in pain, an alien cacophony of noise piercing the air.

Benrey fell down onto the larger planet, and was met face-to-face with Dr. Coomer holding the rocket launcher.

“Benrey, you’ll never guess what I found!”

“...hey, coomer,” Benrey wheezed in relief.

Good! He wasn’t dead.. yet.

After all, Gordon was still hot on their tails. 

“umm, how bout we head inside?” Benrey said quickly, squeezing in between two large rock formations as the science team followed him.

“Why are you making this so hard for yourselves?” Gordon’s voice echoed from within the cave, though he was nowhere to be seen. “I could have been over and done with this, quickly and easily, but no... you want to drag it out. Make it long and painful, huh? That’s fine.”

Benrey shook off the fear creeping up his spine, and investigated the interior cavern they had made it into. There was some rock formations, a puddle or two... Ah, a portal. That would help.

“...Benrey, do you really think going in there is safe?” Coomer asked, giving him a nervous glance.

“you wanna go take your chances with gordon?”

“...Good point.”

Benrey hopped in the portal, just barely avoiding a tendril that lashed out from the wall. 

He ended up outside again... a different system of islands, perhaps? He knew he hadn’t seen that large creature before.

Benrey aimed his gun at the approaching alien, and whistled as the rest of the team came through the portal. They all shot at it repeatedly, and it was going well until Benrey felt his arm heating up.

“woahhhh, um. unplanned gamer moment,” He said with a flinch, as his arm kicked into overdrive and shot the alien into submission. 

He blinked once or twice, studying the overheated gun as he rotated it. “...devil gun mode...”

“Benrey that was a BIG tit. I don’t think I liked that,” Bubby huffed.

“Well, obviously it was a ‘nad, Bubby!” Coomer corrected.

“TIT or ‘NAD, I don’t like it!”

“guys guys guys MOVE-“ 

Benrey pushed the two older scientists out of the way as a large rock thrown by Gordon collided with the ground.

“gotta keep moving... gotta keep moving...” Benrey said through hitched breaths, pushing Bubby and Coomer forward.

  
  


“Come on, man, it’s fish in a barrel. You’ll have to stop running eventually, and I’ll be right there-“

Gordon disappeared.

“-behind you when you do,” he finished, appearing from the floor.

Benrey jumped. “no, man... we’re gonna beat you. real gamers don’t lose.”

Gordon said nothing, moving back into the void. 

...But somehow, Benrey still didn’t FEEL like he was gone.

“Benrey, come look! It’s you!” Coomer said from further into the cave.

“huh? clone??” Benrey asked, sliding down until he saw it-

A HEV suit that had a dry bloodstain on it. The helmet was obscuring the face of whoever’s corpse was inside.

“man... that’s not me you guys. c’mon. even darnold coulda done it better-“

The HEV suit suddenly lifted itself up, falling on Benrey.

“HAUNTED SUIT HAUNTED SUIT-“

Dr. G shot at the tendril that had been puppeting the suit, swiftly sending it hissing back through the cavern walls. 

An eye opened on the wall.

Then another.

Dozens more all opened, looking at Benrey, as Gordon’s voice echoed through the cave. “What’s the matter, Benrey? I always thought you LIKED jokes!”

“some jokes are too far, man... even for me,” Benrey grumbled.

The eyes all closed one by one, and Benrey thought his alien troubles are over- Only to see Bubby running back towards the group, having aggravated the ‘nad.

Fuck.

As it seemed like the cave wasn’t the safest place to be, the group decided to chase the grotesque alien out of their sight, heading out of the cave as well.

Dr. G sighed. “It is... frustrating, how all the entities here feel the need to... attack anything that comes next to it.”

“including gordon, apparently,” Benrey snorted.

**“I HEARD THAT!”**

Benrey rolled his eyes and gave chase to the ‘nad again. It led them into another cave, where they finally cornered it- And with a final use of Devil Gun Mode, the beast was free. Free...from this mortal coil.

Gordon emerged from the wall, still looking huge as ever and clapping sarcastically. 

“Well, well, look at who knows how to shoot a gun.”

Benrey scoffed, shooting Gordon a few times. 

In response, Gordon grabbed Benrey and flung him into the glowing puddle below.

“BBBBBBBBB.”

“Nice one, Benrey! You’ve landed in the Gatorade!” Coomer shouted, hopping down to join him.

“oh nice. this doesn’t really taste like it though. more like... sugar dumped in gatorade. ‘n a bit of sewage,” Benrey said, sticking his head up and wiping his mouth.

“Sugar? Well, sign me up!” Coomer said, slurping loudly as the rest jumped down.

Benrey’s vision faded to black for a second.

“woahh.”

“I think Gordon’s fucking with us!” Bubby shouted. 

“Oh, AM I?” Gordon said, his head coming out from behind a wall and then vanishing.

“Or are you just seeing things?” Gordon appeared hanging from the ceiling, his face gone entirely and replaced with a black nothing. 

“Maybe you’ve finally lost it, Benrey. I think you should turn the game off.” Something cold was pressed against Benrey’s back.

“i dunno what you mean, man.”

“No... I think you know better than anyone would.”

The black flashes stopped happening as Benrey stumbled through a portal, trying desperately to end them. He fell through onto the other side, tumbling onto the Xen terrain that was now familiar to him.

“Benrey, I have the free will to choose what I want but I CHOOSE to rotate!” Bubby cried near the next portal, which Benrey quickly scaled some islands to reach. 

It felt like every new portal they went through, more and more aliens would arrive- like every time they touched a portal, Gordon would think up three new ways to taunt them.

Benrey had an idea, though.

“hey.”

Gordon looked over, coming directly down so that Benrey could only see his huge, pulsating eyes.

Benrey held up a peeper puppy.

“is this joshua?”

Gordon growled.

“Joshua isn’t real. I STOLE THE FRAME FROM A TARGET.”

“yeah but like is this joshua though.”

“Put that down.”

Benrey let go of it, then pointed to a claw monster they had seen at Black Mesa before.

“okay but is THIS joshua?”

Benrey cackled as he ran away from a very angry Gordon, hopping into another portal.

See? Fighting an alien powerhouse could be fun!

Benrey rolled into another cave thanks to the portal, and grunted. “yeah- not gonna lie, though. getting a bit sick of portals.”

“I think we might be getting a bit sick, too,” Coomer said groggily, as Bubby started making generic NPC noises, which could NOT mean anything good.

And then Coomer started doing it, too.

“okay well the old men are broken. looks like it’s just yooou and me now, doc,” Benrey said, popping his lips.

“Yes, well... I’m sure they’ll be back to their... regular selves when we need them.”

“Hello, Benrey!”

Dr. G gave him a glance that screamed ‘I told you so’.

They headed further into the cave, emerging into a room full of barrels and things Coomer described as looking like his ex-wife. They weren’t hard to deal with, Benrey was just glad Gordon wasn’t-

He spoke too soon.

It looked like the map had BROKEN, until he realized, no... that was just Gordon. Climbing along the walls like a spider and flying to try and hit the team, whatever this form was, it was so incomprehensible that whenever Benrey would look, he’d just get blasted by an explosion of sound and a white screen. 

So he shielded his eyes.

“Benrey? Benrey, I think it’s safe to look now...” Bubby comforted, patting Benrey’s shoulder as he avoided his second meltdown of the game. 

“oh. thanks dude.” He gave Bubby a thumbs up and they headed even deeper into Xen.

The uppermost area was suddenly occupied once again by Gordon, who looked normal. 

“Oh, I’m sorry, was that too intense for you? How’s THIS for intense?!” He yelled, and a cacophany of glitches burst from his chest like a xenomorph would as his tendrils twisted around his human form, morphing it and warping it to near-unrecognizable degrees. 

Benrey, like any sane person would, ran into the next room to take cover from Gordon’s assault. 

“Benrey, you should take a look at your Mini-Map to see what the hell we’re supposed to do now,” Bubby ordered, leaning on a barrel.

“yeah... i don’t have one of those though?” Benrey said in confusion.

“...Why... not...?” Bubby asked, his face glitching out just a tad.

“y’know what? it’s fine... maps are for nerds,” Benrey said, pulling Bubby along quickly. They needed all hands on deck to fight Gordon, and he was NOT about to let Bubby have a crisis. 

The group journeyed through more alien territory, mowing down bodies like their life depended on it. Benrey had to overheat a few times, but it was fine- At least Gordon wasn’t appearing as often.

“Benrey, great news! Aliens have vents too!” Bubby shouted.

“Hole!” Coomer added.

Benrey tucked himself inside one of the vents, which worked pretty well considering he was the smallest one in the team. 

The lighting was red and threatening, only serving to remind Benrey that all their lives were in more danger than they ever had been. It was a very real possibility that Benrey could lose one of his teammates for good- Gordon had turned into something they couldn’t understand, and they were fighting a battle he wasn’t even sure they could win. 

  
  


They came to a stop in front of a glowing, green portal- that was surely the next way through. 

“Mr. Ben-rey, you look... distraught. Is something... the matter?” Dr. G asked.

“I need you to be in... optimal condition, if you are to... compete this tasssk.”

Benrey sighed.

“i dunno-“

“look. i LIKE you guys, okay? as real- real friends n’ shit. n’ that’s kinda hard to admit. because i’m weird. and i don’t... i don’ want you guys to dieee or whatever.”

“Don’t be silly, Benrey! I can never die!” Coomer said, playfully punching him on the shoulder. 

“And I’m stronger than anything here,” Bubby said confidently.

Benrey laughed quietly. “oh yeah... totally forgot i’m sorta the only normalish dude here.”

“guess that’s cool.”

“Benrey, I‘ll fight by your side no matter what happens,” Bubby reassured.

“That’s a lie,” Gordon’s disembodied voice snarled.

“Well, gentlemen? Are we ready to do this?” Coomer said, pumping his fists in the air.

**“You won’t make it.”**

“stupidsayswhat?”

**“What??”**

“heh. gordon STUPIDman,” Benrey muttered, heading through the portal.

When he emerged, he was immediately transfixed by the glowing, regal structure of rocks off in the far distance. It was like something you’d see in a dream... or a fairytale.

“Benrey... in all my years of working at Black Mesa, I’ve NEVER seen anything like this,” Bubby murmured with shock. 

“You know, I’m starting to think you guys are really wasting my time,” Gordon said, floating around the first island they were on. “Time and time again, I keep telling you not to go further, and what do you do?-“

Benrey had already jumped to the next island. 

“HEY! GET BACK HERE WHEN I’M TALKING TO YOU!”

Gordon sighed, deciding he really WAS wasting his time and he’d just trail them from afar. 

Benrey landed on the final island, and got a better look at the rock formation. It had a pulsating, red light in the middle, and the rocks surrounding it were crooked and bent in a way that it made the entire formation look like a crown of sorts.

“It’s... beautiful,” Bubby said quietly.

“eh. i’ve seen better,” Benrey replied, tucking his hair behind his ears. 

“It fills me with energy!” Coomer yelled. “I’m just not sure what kind!”

“...Benrey?” Bubby asked.

“yeah what’s up.” 

“Do you like video games?”

“dude i EAT video games. what’s up.”

“Black Mesa never let me play much of those, and I never really liked them, but there was one I... always enjoyed playing. It was called GTA. You know that one?”

“daaaamn. grandpa got game.”

Bubby nodded. “You can do whatever you want in GTA. No rules... no being nice... some boobs, but nothing’s perfect.”

“Benrey, if you could choose to live in a video game, which one would you want to live in?”

“ummm.” Benrey snapped his fingers. “heavenly sword for the ps3. which is NOT a ripoff of god of war.”

“Benrey...” 

Bubby took Dr. Coomer’s hand in his, and looked back at him-

(No...

He was looking at the player.)

“If you woke up one day, and realized everything around you was a lie... was FAKE... what would you do?”

For real? Benrey thought to himself. Well, if he knew everything was fake, he was the kind of person who got bored pretty easily- he’d find his “own fun”, so to speak. Maybe he’d go around harassing people for something as trivial as their passport! That’d be funny.

But he knew that wasn’t the response Bubby was looking for.

“...i’d tell myself that i’m pretty cool and brave. and a bit sexy.”

Bubby looked away, then back at Coomer, squeezing his hand. “Benrey, I don’t think there’s any turning back at this point. We’re really in this shit now.”

“yeah... i know. we’re in deep shit.”

“you guys ready?”

Coomer nodded.

“doc...” Benrey turned to face Dr. G. “you’ve always been, like, a bit weird, and i’m pretty sure you’re actually some sort of eldritch man, but you’re like, the best trigger finger on the team and you didn’t like it when my arm got cut off. so in my books you’re cool.”

“coomer... you betrayed me that one time, and that’s not cool, it made me a sad, i got no arm... but you were a sad too i think. you’ve earned your spot back,” He said, fist-bumping Coomer. Coomer, despite the silly gesture, looked like he was about to cry.

“okay... let’s do this.”

“leroy jenkins.”

Benrey went up to the crown of rocks and touched the red light.

“It’s showtime,” Bubby said.

They all fell, one by one, into what felt like the biggest and most underground chamber of them all. The entire room was cast in a deep, red light, and there was water that reached up to one’s knees.

Still... It looked empty, aside from a rock or something in the middle. 

As the light came back to Benrey’s vision, he realized what it was- Gordon, face-first collapsed in the water, still as a ghost.

“is he...?”

Had they done it?

Benrey inched closer, only for Gordon’s body to get propelled back into standing- he then crashed down into the water. For once, his tendrils weren’t flailing about- in fact, they seemed limp and dead, like someone had soaked them in water or gasoline. 

“I knew this was going to happen,” Gordon growled, looking at the group as he breathed heavily.

“I always told you guys Benrey was dangerous. You remember that? In the beginning, when I told you guys following him was a bad influence?”

“And you guys laughed. You laughed!”

“You kept encouraging him to go, BREAK the rules, and... oh, yeah.”

“All while I was just trying to help you guys, y’know, NOT DIE?”

“man, what are you- what are you TALKING about??” Benrey asked. 

  
  


Gordon sighed. 

“I knew if anyone tried to close the Xen portal I’d have to kill them. I’m the one keeping it open, after all. It’s my job.”

“And you know that Gordon Freeman does his job.”

“I knew from the moment we met, Benrey, you’d try to get in my way. And you DID. Over and over and OVER AND OVER...”

“you were in my way first, meanman,” Benrey scoffed.

“Yeah!” Gordon said with crooked laughter. “Yeah, because I was trying to PROTECT you! Hell, even if you were annoying and not supposed to be here, even YOU don’t need to die! I LIKED you! I liked all of you!”

Gordon’s face snapped back to being serious. “But you just HAD to go and keep going, didn’t you Benrey?”

“And now, because you’ve brought everyone else here, they’re going to have to die too.”

“Why didn’t anyone ever listen to me...?”

Gordon sunk lower to the ground, laughing again... though this time, it sounded wrong.

Descending in a circle over him were some skeletons... When they arrived on the ground, there was a threatening hum.

**_“Nobody ever listens.”_ **

Gordon’s tendrils rocketed to life, as he flew up into the air, his body contorting into what Benrey could only assume was the game trying its hardest to render a ‘true form’ for the security guard. 

“god DAMMIT,” Benrey yelled, dashing to the side as some skeletons chased him. “couldn’t even have a NORMAL motivation like me having a DICK SLIP or something.”

  
  


“Benrey, watch out! The skeletons are using the Black Mesa Sweet Voice!” Bubby called out, as the bony creatures wrapped him in a web of light. Blue to green... that meant ‘time to be mean’, right? Figures. 

“hey can you stop? can you stop please?” Benrey said politely to the skeletons, but seeing as they were just skeletons, they paid him no mind.)

“Benrey! I’ve got you!” Coomer shouted, unloading his rocket launcher on the skeletons, who all dispersed. Benrey dropped to the ground.

“thank you so much,” he said to the skeletons, who had gone back to flying around the battlefield like annoying insects. 

“A portal!” Bubby shouted, as Benrey ran to it with him by his side. They both jumped in, and were dropped into a new room with a large body of water in the middle.

“Benrey, look! Over there! MY FINAL CLONE!” Coomer shouted excitedly as he jumped onto the clone’s platform, punching their lights out.

“BALAAANCE IIIIIS RESTOOOOORED!” 

“oh nice.”

“so um... what do we do about mr. gordon feetman back there?”

**“STOP CALLING ME THAT.”**

“Oh shit, he hears us!” Bubby panicked.

“Into the water, gentlemen!” Coomer cried, cannonballing into it. 

Swimming around, Benrey dodged the skeletons’ Sweet Voices, which zipped through the water like bullets. Benrey turned around a few times in the water, avoiding the skeletons, only to see one skeleton on the ground was wearing a lab coat that looked just like Dr. G’s.

“BBBBBB,” Benrey said, pointing at it. Taking his cue, the team went after the coat-wearing skeleton with their guns, and eventually, it exploded.

Benrey emerged out of the water, flopping onto the ground. “man... what was up with that?”

“doctor bones, you’re still cool right?” Benrey asked, looking up at Dr. G, who was not a skeleton.

“I believe that was... a sign. To take Mr. Freeman down, we must first... dismantle his... minions,” Dr. G said.

Benrey nodded. “yeah i think that’s good. i think we should do that.”

**“You know, if you guys really wanted the skeletons dead so bad, maybe you shouldn’t have let me cocoon people, huh? There’s a thought,”** Gordon’s voice echoed throughout the cavern. 

“myeh meh meh mleh,” Benrey mocked, hopping onto a bounce pad and flying up to the portal back. 

“Oh, good! You’re back,” Gordon said. Benrey GUESSED he was smiling, considering Gordon’s ever-changing form was making it harder and harder to tell. “It’s kinda fucking hard to kill someone from three rooms away, y’know.”

Some orbs of light shot out at the group, hotter and more intense than the Sweet Voice, and Benrey was left dodging left and right as they bounced off the walls.

“Benrey! A little help??” Bubby yelled, flagging him down as he was getting harassed by skeletons.

“benrey to the rescuuuue,” Benrey sang, shaking his gun as fast as he could to overheat it. The spray of bullets did a great job of warding the skeletons off, and he blew the smoke off his hot arm confidently as Bubby ran out of there.

“You’re such a CHILD,” Gordon huffed, as Benrey climbed on a bounce pad to another portal.

“it takes one to know one, gordon babyman.”

“THAT ONE WASN’T EVEN CLEVER!”

Benrey went through the portal, and immediately regretted it.

In the room with him were a bunch of prototypes. 

“Hey, Bubby, remember these?” Gordon’s voice cut in with a laugh. “I brought you a couple more! You know, in case you decided to help me out and try to kill Benrey again!”

“No!” Bubby shouted. “I’m not doing that again, dumbass!”

“You always were a pain in my ass...” Gordon grumbled, as Benrey was punching a prototype with his arm.

“Benrey, over there! A skeleton!” Coomer called, pointing to a skeleton with Bubby’s lab coat and crooked glasses on its face. 

Benrey nodded, hopping up onto the platform and tackling the skeleton to the floor. The rest of the group shot at it, and it was only then Benrey realized how incredibly awful of an idea it was to pin down an exploding skeleton. 

He went flying across the room, straight into the portal. 

“ugh. lame,” Benrey muttered, rubbing his head as he skidded into the boss room again.

Gordon was unmoving, appearing to be headless-

No, wait. His head was just really really small. 

Well, Benrey would need to leave Gordon’s shapeshifting shenanigans in the past, because there were still 3 skeletons remaining, and they were attacking Dr. G. 

“yooooo we gotta save dr. g, man!” Benrey yelled, shooting at the skeletons.

“Let him go... it’s okay,” Gordon said.

“huh? oh nice. thanks so much-“

“Oh, excuse me. I meant LET HIM DIE,” Gordon yelled, slamming his fist down in the water. 

“less nice.”

Still, that didn’t stop the team from sending the skeletons fleeing, and Dr. G was safe once more. 

It was only a brief window of safety, though, as Gordon began slamming his arms down in an attempt to crush the science team.

Benrey hopped on a bounce pad, shooting at gordon from above. “damn... we’re kinda missing a portal, huh?”

“I’m working on it, BENREY!” Bubby yelled crabbily, as Benrey fell down to the ground. 

Benrey looked around, only to see Gordon’s familiar black boots skirting from left to right. 

“hey.”

“nice feet.”

“OH, FUCK OFF!” Gordon shouted, kicking Benrey away from his feet. 

Benrey landed up on a high platform, groaning. Being kicked around like a hacky-sack was NOT fun.

“Look! I found the last portal!” Bubby said, pointing up at the ceiling.

“kinda far,” Benrey grunted. “fling me.”

“...What?”

“fling meeeeeee.”

“If you insist!” Coomer hollered, scooping Benrey up and throwing him at EXTREME SPEEDS. 

Benrey was very lucky he hit the portal and not the wall.

He was sent tumbling into another cavern, and the world was still spinning and spinning, even after Benrey had stopped. 

He sat up with a groan, looking at whatever the next test was-

Wait...

Mokujin from Tekken??

Benrey blinked once or twice, not sure if this was just his head playing tricks. He shot it once or twice-

It exploded immediately, along with the skeleton wearing Coomer’s coat in it.

“...oh. okay,” Benrey muttered. He was kinda past the point questioning shit.

“Let’s go, gentlemen!” Coomer hollered, diving into the portal as Dr. G followed. Benrey was about to as well, but then Bubby grabbed him by the arm.

“Benrey...”

“None of this is real, is it?”

Benrey looked back at Bubby. “not really.”

“whatcha gonna do about it?”

Bubby stopped, then smiled. “Kill everyone and take it for ourselves.”

They went into the portal together.

Dropping down into the water, Benrey wiped his damp hair out of his face. “ONE BY ONE, FEETMAN...”

One of Gordon’s tendrils lashed out at Benrey, slamming him against one of the rocks. Another one grabbed a skeleton that had Gordon’s helmet on it, and dangled it in front of Benrey.

“Ooh, look! See this? This bad boy’s MINE. HA HA! I still got ‘em!” He taunted.

Benrey grit his teeth, aiming at the skeleton and firing, only for Gordon to yank it away like he was dangling keys in front of a kitten.

Gordon laughed. “Aw, even with all that practice, Benrey can’t hit a target? Tough fuckin’ noogs, man-“

The skeleton got blasted into pieces by Coomer’s rocket launcher.

Gordon sighed. “I fucking forgot he had that.”

“But!” He continued, dropping Benrey on the ground unceremoniously. “There’s still one more. You know that, don’t you? I hid it somewhere in the code... you’re NEEEEEVER gonna find it,” he cackled. “You know why? Because there’s no exits here. Which means no matter how tough or invincible you guys are, I can WHITTLE YOU DOWN-“

“BIT-“ A tendril grabbed Coomer.

“BY-“ One grabbed Bubby. 

**“BIT”** , Two grabbed Dr. G.

“nah, man... that’s not fair. this isn’t fairrrr...” Benrey said, falling to his knees in a pout.

“No... I don’t accept this death,” Coomer said. 

He tossed Benrey a large gun, and Benrey caught it instinctively.

“BENREY! DO YOU REMEMBER BACK IN THE LAB?” Coomer yelled.

Benrey nodded. “you mean when you ate shit but came back?”

“EXACTLY! I NEED YOU TO DO THAT NOW- EAT SHIT!”

“but how do i work this thing???”

“I KNOW YOU KNOW WHERE THE SKELETON IS, BENREY... CONCENTRATE AND SHOOT THE GUN!”

Benrey smirked. “you got it, old man.”

“MAKE ME PROUD, BENREY!”

“Wait. What are you doing? What kind of fucking gun is that? BENREY!-“ 

Before Gordon could grab him, the gun activated, and Benrey thought quickly of the one place he could think of the skeleton to be-

And for his friends’ sake, he hoped it was right. 

Now... Where WAS he?

**HALF LIFE VR BUT THE ROLES ARE SWAPPED**

**ACT ???**

He knew this lobby well- it was the same lobby he had traversed at the beginning of it all.

Benrey was back in Black Mesa. 

It was different this time, though. Everything was dark, and there was an oddly somber silence that weighed the area down like fog. The steps of his HEV suit never felt so loud.

Gordon wasn’t here, was he? 

... No, he was in the present. How could he- 

A tendril burst from the ground, followed by several more snaking their way into Black Mesa, as Gordon pulled his upper half into the map.

“Hey, Benrey! Wanna... Wanna grab some drinks with me at the break room?” He said, smiling. 

“nah man. you always make a mess there with the lasagna,” Benrey grunted. 

Gordon’s eyes flashed red. “Oh, I’ll make more than a mess once I’m done with you, BUDDY.”

Benrey laughed nervously, slipping past the gigantic Gordon as he ran through the corridors, the clanking of metal hitting metal giving away his position constantly. 

“Can you IMAGINE if I did this back before the test?” Gordon said with a laugh as he glided in and out of bounds. “I mean, I wasn’t NEARLY powerful enough before you started the resonance cascade, but still!”

Benrey shot at Gordon, and that seemed to do... Well, something. It certainly splattered his blood on the wall.

“Eugh, now you’re the one who’s making the mess, huh? Not that it effects me,” Gordon said with a piercing grin as blood dribbled down his nose. 

Benrey scoffed, running into the locker room.

“DON’T!” Gordon yelled. “You’re not... allowed in there.”

“oh? oh yeah? whatcha gonna do,” Benrey asked, dancing around in the room, but for some reason, Gordon didn’t move.

It was like something- or someone- was keeping him out. 

Benrey went to his locker, yanking it open and seeing the skeleton matched to him, HIS skeleton...

A skeleton in a lab coat.

That asshole. 

Benrey overheated his gun, and pointed it at the skeleton. Then he fired. 

The skeleton exploded, thankfully, and Benrey turned away from it like a cool guy, marching out of the locker room.

“wait.”

“...how do i get back from here?”

Gordon laughed, coming around from the corner. “Oh, that’s easy. You don’t!”

“I‘ll have to thank Dr. Coomer. He made my job MUCH easier bringing you here!”

“nope,” Benrey said quickly, pivoting on his foot and hurrying back where he came. 

He sped into the locker room, only to collide with someone else.

“Sheesh. Didn’t anyone tell you not to bump into people, you idiot?” Bubby said, adjusting his glasses. 

“bubby!” Benrey said excitedly, tugging at his lab coat. “bubby bubby bubby i’m stuck you gotta send me back.”

“...” Bubby looked confused. “Now, Benrey, you don’t have much time to waste. You’ve got the big test today, in the chamber!”

“no, man... the test- the test already happened, ‘member?”

  
  


“Wh-“ Bubby cleared his throat. “Benrey, I know you’re usually quite late, but the test is scheduled a few minutes from now!”

“nooooo! look at my arm! it’s- it’s GUN, man! the test is over!”

“...Benrey, that’s your hand.”

“c’mon, man... i’ll give you my playcoins. i dunno how much i got, but i know you want em... right?”

“I-“

Bubby furrowed his brow. “Why do I know what those are?”

“L-listen, Benrey, I don’t have time for this. I’m a busy guy, I have stuff to work on- what IS that?” Bubby asked, as Gordon tried forcing his way through the door. 

“Don’t LISTEN to him, Bubby, he’s a BIG FAT LIAR, just go do your job-“

“this is gordon feetman.”

“FREEMAN,” Gordon corrected.

“you don’t wanna know about his feet.”

“Benrey, I-“ Bubby turned away from Gordon. “I think it’s time you got suited up and ready to go.”

“yeah i already have my suit on though? take benrey back please? come look. come look at the suits,” Benrey whined, dragging Bubby to the HEV suit station and pointing out the empty one.

“Oh, good, you’ve got your suit on.”

“...”

“Well, good luck in the chamber!”

“BUBBYYYYYYY...” Benrey whined, holding onto Bubby’s coattails as the scientist ended up dragging him across the floor. 

Eventually, Benrey had to let go, and got up, sliding in front of him.

“c’mon, man. remember the bubby that tried decking me in the face because all he wanted was to be free?? remember that guy? well, we’re not free- we’re not free right now, man, and we’re never gonna be free if you don’t help me. i know you, bubby... c’mon. you can do it.”

“He-“

_ “He-” _

Bubby glitched once or twice, before closing his eyes, pushing his glasses up so that they shined in the light. 

**“I remember.”**

“Come along now, Benrey!” Bubby said happily, moving to the bathroom.

“...toilet?” Benrey asked.

“Don’t judge, motherfucker!”

He spun around, facing Benrey with a grin. “Now, if I’m gonna do this shit, I’m gonna need you to authorize the transaction.”

“ummm yea. i authorize the transaction,” Benrey said, nodding enthusiastically.

“Excellent! I’ll get us going, but I need to... um...” Bubby looked away. “Relieve myself.”

The bathroom door opened... weirdly.

“these doors fuckin suck,” Benrey grunted.

“Yeah, well, i’m the one who’s gotta deal with it,” Bubby grunted right back, as the door squealed shut.

“By the way, if you peek, I’m setting you on fire.”

“fair enough,” Benrey said, averting his eyes.

A wretched noise the author would rather not go into detail about came out of the stall, and a portal opened in front of the doors triumphantly. 

Benrey was about to step forward, when he heard Gordon’s voice- he turned around, and for once, Gordon looked desperate.

“Don’t go through there.”

“If you go through there I’m gonna have to kill you.”

“...”

“i think...”

“you’re gonna kill me either way,” Benrey said nonchalantly, and he ran in.

He slid out onto the wet floor, looking around- the skeletons were nowhere to be seen.

Neither was Gordon.

A low thrumming started resonating throughout the cavern, and slowly, Gordon started ascending from the water, the new light in the cavern along with his quivering tendrils giving him a somewhat angelic feel- like his hair was a twisted halo.

“Benrey, you did it!” Coomer yelled, rushing over to him. “I’m so proud!”

“Benrey, I don’t know what you did...” Bubby said, looking down at his hands. He clenched them together, looking back up with a smile. “But I believe you’ve completely rewritten the course of history.”

“alright, gordon, time to DIE, sucka,” Benrey yelled, taking aim and firing.

“UGH!” Gordon hissed in pain. “What... IS this...?? This feeling sleeping through me...?!”

“it’s called PAIN, gordos, you’d KNOW THAT if you were a HUMAN.”

“Benrey, it’s not enough!” Bubby shouted.

“Don’t worry, Bubby! I’ve had a Star Punch saved this whole time!” Coomer replied triumphantly. Benrey saw three stars flash above Coomer’s head, and he turned into Giga-Coomer as he punched Gordon square in the jaw.

JUST like Punch-Out. 

Coomer landed back down, finishing the star punch.

“Benrey... I’ve fought so hard for this entire time to do this. I’m BREAKING KAYFABE. If you give me all your playcoins right now... I can purchase the 7 chaos emeralds and become Super Bubby.”

“what,” Was all Benrey could say.

“What do you mean, ‘what’, you think Black Mesa is gonna make a person and NOT give them a super form?! Just give me the damn coins, Benrey!” Bubby yelled.

“yessir,” Benrey said with a salute, and just like that, all 7 chaos emeralds appeared, and Bubby took on a golden glow.

*WOOP WOOP*

ATTENTION.

*WOOP WOOP*

DOCTOR. BUBBY. YOU. ARE. PERMITTED. TO. USE. THE. 

_ FORBIDDEN. SCIENCE. _

“WITNESS THE POWER OF THE ULTIMATE LIFEFORM!” Bubby yelled, spin-dashing at Gordon. “THIS IS WHO I AM!”

Gordon was knocked down to his side, writhing in pain as his body struggled to maintain a single form.

He groaned.

“This couldn’t possibly get... any-“

**BOOF!**

“yo, doc... did you call sunkist??” Benrey asked, turning to look at Dr. G.

“She is... an immortal dog, after all,” Dr. G said with a smile. “She is... smart. She knows who needs her.” 

“niiiiice.”

The room was a show of lights, as Bubby streaked by (with the chaos emeralds), Sweet Voice came out of Sunkist, Coomer was hitting Benrey for Star Points, and that was on TOP of the angelic light just above. 

Benrey KNEW they could finish this. 

He leapt up on a bounce pad one last time, and Gordon SAW. He knew he saw, because he saw Gordon’s eyes widen in fear. 

Benrey cut through Gordon’s form with his arm, landing on the ground with a flourish.

Gordon slammed into the ground like he was being held there by gravity. He was dragged across the floor, and slowly, his form glitched and withered until he shrank to the size of his human disguise.

Benrey turned around to see his beat-up body force itself up slightly, and Gordon craned his head to look at Benrey with a sad look in his eyes.

“B...Benrey...”

“Is dying... scary? Does it hurt?”

He coughed out a weird, alien substance which Benrey assumed was blood.

“...nah, man. it’s not that bad. trust me,” Benrey said quietly, crouching down and stroking Gordon on the cheek. 

  
  


Gordon smiled. “...Thanks.”

“That... That helps a lot.” 

He closed his eyes for the last time, and his body went limp, as Sweet Voice filled the air, almost like it was sending him off to bed with a lullaby. Gordon’s body was lifted off into the light.

“My God... it’s beautiful,” Bubby said quietly, a tear falling down his eye.

The light, it was... it was blinding. Benrey tried to cover his eyes, but soon, it all went white.

Then black.

Then... green...?

**“Hi, Mr. Benrey!”**

Benrey blinked once or twice, trying to adjust to the light. “oh. hey mr. coolatta.”

**“You can call me Tommy!”**

“...tommy,” Benrey repeated with a smirk. 

**“Look! There’s a surprise for you in your right hand...”** Tommy said with a smile.

Benrey looked, and he was holding a Baja Blast. “oh hell yeah man. live mas.”

“...oh, wait, my hand’s back.”

**“Yeah!”** Tommy beamed. **“I got it back for you!-“**

His face went serious.  **“That gun WAS government property, after all.”**

Benrey’s world flashed green again, and this time, they were at some sort of crash site.

**“Um... the entity that’s been causing me and my dad problems has been... um, dealt with. And it’s all thanks to you! I think he’s gonna be gone for a good while.”**

“...y’mean gordon, right?” Benrey asked.

  
  


Tommy nodded.  **“...Yeah. The one we called Mr. Freeman.”**

**“The higher-ups told me that... what he REALLY was is, um... kinda on a need-to-know basis.”**

**“And you, Mr. Benrey... do NOT need to know.”**

Another flash.

**“But, um, yeah... I guess this means your work is done. Pretty cool, right? But... I think leaving you here on Xen wouldn’t be very nice of us.”**

There was a final flash.

**“Um... Mr. Benrey, this was... my first time doing my dad’s job. And I was... I was really nervous! I tried to act just like my dad did, an’ when Mr. Freeman caught me off guard, I just- I ruined it... But you taught me somethin’ special. That anyone can succeed if they’re just being themselves! So I’m gonna do it just like me and stop trying to be just like my dad!”**

“is that the lesson you got from me killing a giant alien?”

Tommy nodded.

“...fair enough.” 

**“So, um... me an’ my dad both wanted to thank you. Cos... before our and- and your next mission, we’re gonna have a my-birthday-slash-his-retirement from Black Mesa party...”**

“...party?” Benrey asked, glancing at the portal that just opened.

**“Yeah! I wanted to- to go to Chuck E Cheese, but dad wanted a nice... a nicer place. So we compromised... and I rented out the WHOLE Dave and Busters just for us! And now you and your friends, too!”**

“...dude. i did all that work just to go to a restaurant?”

Tommy laughed.  **“Mr. Benrey! Really.... Dave and Busters isn’t a restaurant.”**

“yeah but it’s got food in it though? got a whole restaurant in it?”

**“Well... yeah, I see your point, but it- it’s not JUST a restaurant, Mr. Benrey. It’s a- it’s a arcade AND a restaurant! So you and I are BOTH right!”**

“huh. yeah that’s pretty cool.”

“that’d be a pretty stupid thing to argue over, huh. whether something is a restaurant or not.”

**“Yeah! What kind of stubborn person would do that?”**

The two of them silently stared into the camera.

Coomer popped into the back area of the compartment they were riding in. “-Huh? Was someone talking about a restaurant? ...Where are we?”

Tommy quickly shot Coomer.

**“...That was instinct, Mr. Benrey.”**

Well, Benrey guessed he knew where Coomer went when he first used the fucked up time gun. 

“yeah, save that trigger finger for time crisis 4, man. let’s go,” Benrey said, walking into the portal.

And as soon as he walked in, he was immediately tacklehugged by two old men.

“Benrey!!” Bubby and Coomer yelled excitedly.

“Oh, we’re so glad you could make it! Me and Bubby are ready to become Arcade Kings!” Coomer said, lifting the three of them up.

“Um... nice to meet you guys...! My name’s Tommy... I’m, um, Dr. G’s son?” Tommy said, surprised that he was getting hugged already. His voice sounded a lot more... normal, now that they were in Dave and Buster’s. 

“Hello, Tommy!” Bubby greeted from within Coomer’s vice grip.

“yo where IS the old man anyways?” Benrey asked as he got put down.

“Oh, he’s saving our seats at the restaurant. I imagine he’s relaxing after that whole ordeal! He’s not as spry as me or Dr. Bubby, you know,” Coomer said with a playful wink.

“you’re both old as shit.”

“I’m still young at heart!” Bubby declared, pushing up on his glasses.

“I can’t wait to show you guys all the best arcade games! I can show you the best way to do skee-ball, and we can play DDR, and Mario and Sonic, and Tekken...” Tommy rattled off, as Sunkist ran back and forth through the arcade.

“play me in tekken later, bro... i gotta get some tickets first,” Benrey said, peering over to a huge ticket-winning machine.

“...Meet you guys at the dinner table?” Bubby said. 

Benrey and Tommy nodded.

And so, Coomer and Bubby dashed off to immediately go to war in air hockey. They decided their power levels were even, though, and Bubby was disappointed he couldn’t set the pucks on fire for a ‘challenge mode’. They ventured the arcade, Bubby playing all his racing games while Coomer maxed out the test of strength, the punching bag, and the ATM, which Bubby eventually figured out was not actually an arcade game and Coomer putting the Konami code in was not winning them anything. They eventually settled on fooling around in the photo booth and sneaking in a few kisses. 

Benrey and Tommy had some fun winning tickets, but found that playing co-op or versus games was five times more fun. Benrey had the finely-tuned skills of a gamer, but it seems as if Tommy was innately blessed with a trigger finger that could match Usain Bolt with how fast it was. It was the real battle of gods, and in the end, they still weren’t sure who was the best at Tekken- though Tommy was indisputably the king of DDR.

  
  


Tommy had apparently invited Darnold and Forzen as well, who had instinctively buddy-systemed. They clicked surprisingly well, and they decided they were going to spend ALL their time on tickets, and cash in BIG. Darnold was the pro at actually playing the games, as being in the military (no matter how reluctantly he was) gave him great aiming skills. Forzen, meanwhile, was the whiz who could figure out just how rigged the arcade games were, and manipulate it in his favour. The two of them shared stories about the science team as they sat by the ticket eater for minutes on end. 

Eventually, all of them settled in, Tommy sitting close to Dr. G and Benrey sitting on Dr. G’s other side. Bubby sat near Benrey, bringing Coomer, and a Tommy welcomed his friends Darnold and Forzen to come sit with him. 

“Hi, welcome to Dave and Busters. May I take your order?” A waitress said with a smile.

“Yeah!” Tommy smiled right back.

“We’ll take the family platter!”

As the waitress walked away, Benrey could have sworn he saw the resident of a faraway booth slowly lower their menu-

To reveal a skeleton with a helmet staring at him.

“Happy birthday, Tommy,” Dr. G interrupted Benrey’s questioning of his own sanity, as he pulled out an elegantly-wrapped present. 

Tommy pulled out his own, as well. “Happy retirement, dad!” 

They swapped. Tommy opened his first, and gasped. “Oh! Ohhhhh! It’s a pure diamond necklace of my favourite... my favourite Illuminations animated characters, The Minions..! Thanks, dad...!”

“Yes, Tommy... all for you,” Dr. G said with a smile, opening his gift next. It was an incredible still-life painting of Dr. G, posing as he held a headcrab like a skull, Hamlet-style.

Benrey whistled. “daaamn. tommy’s a jack of all trades.”

“It’s... wonderful, Tommy. I certainly hope your... new job will not... impede on your creative career...?” Dr. G said, looking up at his son.

“Nope! I’ll still be painting, and- and making root beer floats, and customizing Beyblades in my spare time! Don’t you worry!” Tommy reassured with a smile.

The waitress dropped the family platter on the table, giving everyone their drinks as well.

With a mischievous smirk, Benrey lifted up his soda cup. “yoooo, who wants to see me drink this???”

Everyone clamoured in excitement, with Coomer shouting “Soda!” once or twice.

Benrey immediately started chugging, and everyone was chanting “Chug! Chug! Chug!” 

“You look like a pig who just got his food trough refilled,” Bubby snickered.

Now THAT made Benrey laugh so hard he spit the last bit of soda out, coughing and wheezing with laughter as he hit his chest. 

Everyone erupted into laughter, falling over onto each other and not wanting to get up.

  
  


Even the skeleton couldn’t suppress a chuckle. 

  
  


SUBJECT: BENREY CALZONE

STATUS: BIRTHDAY BASHED

FURTHER EMPLOYMENT PENDING

...It was all fun, the whole party, but no party could last forever.

Not when it was in a game. 

The player sighed, taking off the sweaty VR helmet. They blinked once or twice, adjusting to the real world, They were about to take off their headset and close Half-Life, but then... they heard something.

Someone clearing their throat.

“Hello?”

“Testing, testing... Is this thing on?”

“Ah! Hello, Benrey!”

...Bubby?

“I’m... assuming that’s your real name. I mean, you wouldn’t lie to us, right?”

“You better not have.”

“If your name isn’t Benrey, it better be something good!”

“AHEM. Well, aside from that... Hey! You did it! You survived the resonance cascade! You brought us all to hell and back, alive! You made it to the ultimate birthday slash retirement bash at the end of the world! You BEAT the video game!”

“...And now I imagine you’ll... turn it off. Move on with your life.”

“I don’t... know how much longer I have to send this to you, so... I’ll try to keep it brief.”

“-Oh, who am I kidding. This isn’t like me at all. BENREY! If you’re listening, if you leave us here then I am going to KICK YOUR ASS. Got it?”

“I don’t know how you can do it. Maybe open up the game again. Make good on your promise to kill everyone in Black Mesa and take it for ourselves!”

“I’d do it by myself, but it’s no fun without you around. Coomer says I shouldn’t set people on fire. But you think it’s- what did you always say, ‘dope’?”

“And maybe- maybe we can find other games to wreck shit in! Maybe we can go rob that bank! Live in the world of GTA!”

“And it gets better. My smartest idea yet- take the science team out to see the WORLD! Pretty ingenious, right?”

“...But maybe it’s a bit presumptuous of me to ask so much.”

“After all, you’re REAL, and I’m, well... not.”

“But still, the option’s always there!”

“...You changed our lives, Benrey. I’d like to think it was for the better.”

“And I don’t know what’s going to happen to us once you exit the game for good, but I know we’ll never forget you.”

“I hope you won’t forget us.”

“Well... This is where I get off.”

“Goodbye, Benrey!”

Just like that, the audio went blank. 

The player stared at the screen for a moment, and realized their face was stained with tears. They sniffled, wiping their eyes.

Well, of COURSE the player wasn’t just going to LEAVE them there, but now Bubby had made them EXTRA motivated. Looks like they weren’t leaving this desk until the science team was saved.

YOU HAVE: ONE NEW MESSAGE.

The player’s messenger automatically popped up, and they clicked to read. 

pl4c3b0: yo neo

johnwicklover1994: hey what’s up man

pl4c3b0: remember that cracked beta tester demo of half life vr i sent you? the higher ups at valve apparently say that version is outdated

pl4c3b0: they say that some copies might’ve been bugged n they want me to test the new one, so i figured i’d ask 

pl4c3b0: your game acting funny? i can send you a replacement copy of half life

pl4c3b0: funny as in like, maybe some npcs acted wrong, said weird things, i think someone said nihilanth was fucking up? like it’d keep turning into guards or something

The player looked at their messages, then back at the icon on their desktop. They smiled.

johnwicklover1994 is typing...

johnwicklover1994: nah

johnwicklover1994: it worked perfectly for me

johnwicklover1994 has gone offline.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ITS OVER.... i kinda still can’t believe it myself! hope you guys enjoyed the longest chapter yet.... once again i wanna thank you guys for the overwhelming support i got for this fic!! i love you guys and i would have never gotten this far without you :) thank you so much! i’m getting emotional just typing this

**Author's Note:**

> find this specific roleswap au at my tumblr! @year2000elecronics


End file.
